Sexual safety in Unsafe Places?
In more recent years it has come to the fore that people with mental health issues residing within mental health inpatient units experience a greater risk of sexual assault. It is well reported that the UK does not currently have a robust infrastructure for managing sexual safety as a whole. The Prime Minister was keen that lessons learnt from recent historic and current cases of sexual abuse of children or vulnerable people are identified and used to improve services and prevention.
In 2013 the National Group on Sexual Violence against Children and Vulnerable People (SVACVP), Led by the Home Office, set a direction and drove delivery of action across government, national and local, to get better outcomes for children and vulnerable people within the criminal justice system and beyond. The chair of this group wrote to the Director of Patient Safety June 2013. One of the questions raised was regarding the work programme by Domain 5 Patient Safety in relation to this issue. Reassurance was given that the Patient Safety Expert Group for Mental Health were currently exploring the development of a tool that would support front line nursing staff on identifying predators and how to safeguard vulnerable people from being victims of sexually disinhibited behaviour.
A fundamental aim of the study was to discover new approaches outside of the UK that are successfully seeking to overcome the habits of practice. South Australia Health is a leading light in addressing the issue and has developed policy and strategy in patient units to engage with/learn how these are empowering people by enhancing the patient experience, assuring people’s dignity, and in turn safeguarding their sexual wellbeing.
A key aim of the study was to understand how sexual safety incidents are not only measured and reported, but to gain a direct understanding of the learning that takes place within clinical settings and to become involved directly with hands-on practice by working with clinical teams in a number of services and with different client groups.
In South Australia there appeared to be much more freedom to design and operate more user focused services. My visits gave me an understanding of how the front line nursing system is implementing safer services and enabling a more positive view of vulnerable service users. It has certainly increased their visibility in a positive sense and made meaningful the concept of sexual safety to those both at risk and that of those that might be at risk.
In considering the core elements of nursing people at risk of sexual assault the world over, as nurses we are faced with many of the same challenges. The learning environment that is clinical practice poses a great number of dilemmas for nurses in this specialist field, for this branch of nursing is not always an exact science.
In undertaking the scholarship I have learnt not only about new approaches in caring for vulnerable people with mental health and learning disability needs, but more importantly have experienced both personal growth and a new awareness of another country’s cultures and value base.