Our trust is committed to ensuring that privacy and dignity is at the heart of everything we do. To support this, our trust has a team of dedicated dignity champions who strive to enhance the dignity agenda on a day-to-day basis and ensure it is an integral part of practice and delivery of services right across our organisation, this includes, amongst other things, ensuring mealtimes are protected.
Declaration of compliance: Delivery of Single Sex Accommodation (DSSA)
March 31, 2012
Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Foundation Trust is pleased to confirm that we are compliant with the government’s requirement to eliminate mixed-sex accommodation, except when it is in the patient’s overall best interest, or reflects their personal choice. We have the necessary facilities, resources and culture to ensure that patients who are admitted to our hospitals will only share the room where they sleep with members of the same sex, and same-sex toilets and bathrooms will be close to their bed area.
Sharing with members of the opposite sex will only happen when patients actively choose to share in appropriate circumstances where partners are being treated at the same time and where this is appropriate.
If our care should fall short of the required standard, we will report it. We will also set up an audit mechanism to make sure that we do not misclassify any of our reports.
We have discussed with our lead commissioner arrangements for local reporting and monitoring and this will be reviewed on a regular basis through our formal quality monitoring processes.
The trust launched new guidance which sets out some core standards expected of all staff in relation to workplace attitude, behaviours and communication (ABC). The guidance sets out the standards by which our staff should use to conduct themselves in terms of attitude, behaviour and communication. Thesestandardsareapplicable for all levels of staff from those with essential front line responsibilities to our Chief Executive and members of our Trust Board.
We recognise the importance of having common, minimum standards in each of these areas and the guidance supports our joint commitment ensuring we treat each other with respect, dignity, fairness and courtesy at all times.
The standards are also part of a range of actions we are taking in response to the outcomes from successive staff surveys which have underlined the importance of valuing staff, ensuring we all communicate effectively and creating and sustaining positive staff experiences in the workplace. We have already done a considerable amount of work to jointly promote and reinforce the standards across our Trust ensuring all staff reflect the appropriate behaviours as defined within the guidance.
Click here to view information on our ABC Core standards.
BSMHFT Mystery Shopper Campaign
Our mystery shopper project has been operating for over twelve months. The project was initiated from service user comments at User Voice forums. Our service users expressed a desire to visit and look at different services and sites across our organisation and report back anonymously on what they found. A programme of regular visits ensures mystery shopper audits take place. Following each visit, a feedback report is sent to local managers and their line managers. Improvements made as a result of mystery shopper visits are published on our Intranet and made available to service users and carers. To date, twenty service users and carers have been trained to carry out this work and the majority of Trust sites have been audited at least once.
Another initiative linked to the mystery shoppers project is ‘Show us your badges!’ The initiative incorporates staff badge-checks in recognition of the importance of entering a ward or unit and knowing who is who. The campaign also assesses waiting rooms/ reception areas. This recognises the importance of first impressions by ensuring our waiting rooms are comfortable, welcoming and informative.
To capture real-time electronic feedback, our trust is trialling electronic hand held feedback devices. Further information on the project will appear here soon.
BSMHFT Dignity Postcard Campaign
We asked our user groups and carer groups what the most important key issues were to them regarding dignity. It was decided to make these public through a poster and postcard campaign drawing attention to ten dignity pledges that our Trust would always strive to meet.
To support this, our Trust provides a PALS customer care line for all service users and carers, for those needing advice or who wish to raise a dignity related concern.
Our ten dignity pledges, drawn up by service users and carers provides the blueprint for how our Trust delivers dignity in care.
These pledges are displayed across all Trust sites on postcards and include:
BSMHFT - The Ten Pledges of Dignity
1. Courtesy and respect for our service users,carers and families
2. Zero tolerance of any abuse, from our staff or other service users
3. The chance to be listened to and to contribute to your Care Plan
4. Choices and opportunities to express any concerns, wants or needs
5. Privacy for you, and confidentiality with your issues
6. Your compliments, comments or complaints will be taken seriously
7. Engagement with your carer or support network, if required
8. Assistance in boosting your confidence, self-esteem and well being.
9. Guidance to access information, advice and advocacy
10. Help to join support groups and to become more involved
