An Audit of Interview Room Safety in Birmingham Addiction and Recovery Community Hub (ARCH) Services

Abstract

Introduction & Background

Safety of mental health professionals is vital for services to function. A National Audit Office document emphasizes the right of NHS staff to safety and the duty of the organization to do their utmost to ensure it. The Royal College of Psychiatrists has recommendations for interview room safety, and emphasizes the relationship between the clinical environment and violent incidences. Previous studies have focused on interview rooms across mental health services, in both inpatient and outpatient settings and in different subspecialties.

Aims & Objectives

To assess the safety of interview rooms in Addiction and Recovery Community Hub (ARCH) services in Birmingham.

To highlight areas that can be improved upon to enhance safety.

To emphasize the importance of a safe interview room both in design and organization.

Method

Royal College recommendations, safety advice, and trust guidelines were integrated to form standards to assess interview room safety.

All interview rooms at the ARCH locations were assessed against these standards.

Data was re-checked for accuracy.

Results

Every interview room demonstrated shortcomings in at least 2 of the 12 safety parameters.

Results for other parameters were more satisfactory, with a minimum of over 70% of rooms complying with each safety feature.

All rooms were satisfactory on 2 parameters.

Conclusions

Interview room safety is not being achieved to adequate standards in ARCH services in Birmingham.

Greater emphasis needs to be placed on interview room safety and efforts need to be made to correct shortcomings.