Safewards Model: Enhancing Patient Safety in Australian Mental Health

This presentation provides an overview of the Safewards Model, a framework designed to reduce conflict and containment in inpatient mental health wards. The model comprises six domains: the physical environment, patient community, staff team, outside hospital influences, patient characteristics, and the regulatory framework. These domains act as checkpoints that can potentially lead to conflict. The presentation highlights intervention strategies such as understanding mutual expectations, organizing mutual help meetings, counseling, and using positive communication techniques. Analysis of the Safewards Model's implementation in Australia, based on studies and trial reports, demonstrates a decline in seclusion rates and increased safety in wards where the model was effectively adopted. The presentation concludes that the Safewards Model can be successfully implemented in Australia to achieve positive patient outcomes and is readily accepted by staff members.

Mental health nursing
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Safewards Model:
 Conflict and associated containment
possess the potential to inflict harm
on the patients and staff members.
 The safewards model has been
proposed to reduce the prevalence
of risk in the inpatient wards.
 The model essentially comprises of
six domains to manage conflict and
containment within the inpatient
setting (Bowers, 2014).

Safewards Model
 The six factors essentially comprise of
the physical environment, the patient
community, the staff team, outside
hospital, patient characteristics and
regulatory framework
 The areas have been potentially
identified as checkpoints that can lead
to an episode of conflict (Bowers, 2014)
 Efficient staff management can help in
the significant reduction of aggressive
events within the inpatient settings

Intervention strategies:
 A clear understanding of the mutual
expectations
 Organising a mutual help meet
 Counselling or one to one session
 Use of soft words
 Use of optimistic discharge
messages
 Use of effective ‘calm down’
procedures
 Use of positive words

Intervention Strategies:
 Providing comfort and reassurance
 To know one another completely
 Impart effective mitigation measures
to deal with bad news

Analysis of implementing Safewards
in Australia:
 According to a study conducted by Fletcher et al.,
(2017), effective implementation of the safeward
model in 13 wards led to a decline in the rate of
seclusion by 36%
 According to the Safewards Victorian trial report,
the implementation of the model led to increased
safety and decrease in conflict episodes (Hamilton
et al., 2016)
 The report further stated that the safewards model
was readily accepted by the staff members and
attained higher fidelity levels (Hamilton et al.,
2016)
 On the basis of the findings, it can be said that the
model can be implemented in Australia to achieve
positive patient outcomes

References:
Bowers, L. (2014). Safewards: a new model of conflict and containment on
psychiatric wards. Journal of psychiatric and mental health
nursing, 21(6), 499-508.
Fletcher, J., Spittal, M., Brophy, L., Tibble, H., Kinner, S., Elsom, S., &
Hamilton, B. (2017). Outcomes of the Victorian Safewards trial in 13
wards: Impact on seclusion rates and fidelity measurement. International
journal of mental health nursing, 26(5), 461-471.
Hamilton, B., Fletcher, J., Sands, N., Roper, C., & Elsom, S. (2016).
Safewards Victorian Trial Final Evaluation Report. Report to Chief Mental
Health Nurse, Department of Health and Human Services. Melbourne:
Centre for Psychiatric Nursing, University of Melbourne.