Patient Safety In Mental Health

Patient safety is the reduction of unsafe acts within health care settings through the use of best practices and sound knowledge to obtain optimal patient outcomes (Brickell et al., 2009). There has been a lack of research focusing on patient safety as a discipline in mental health context. The vast majority of research has predominantly focused on physical health of patients despite the significance attributed to mental health (D’Lima et al., 2016). However, It can not be assumed that findings based upon general medical settings can be applied to mental health. Brickell et al. (2009) identified that clients receiving mental health treatment are at risk of patient safety incidents and challenges that are uniquely or strongly linked with mental

Chang et al. (2005) found that mental health hospitals were the second most frequent area for patient safety incidents, following general hospitals. Patient safety incidents in health care settings occur as a result of a complex set of contributing and interacting factors (Nath &Marcus, 2006). Kanerva et al. (2013) highlights the importance of gaining a greater understanding of the complex system level factors that contribute to patient safety incidents which can help to mitigate and prevent these events in the future. Mental health nurses can help safeguard vulnerable clients by assisting them to regain personal control through including them to make decisions about their care, providing emotional and psychological support, respecting their confidentiality, preserving their dignity and restrict their behaviors only as necessary in order to improve their patient safety (Wills,

The Code of professional Conduct and Ethics (NMBI,2014), A vision for Psychiatric Nursing (2012),Mental Health Act 2001, A Vision for Change (2006), Scope of Nursing and Midwifery Practice Framework (2015), Mental Health Commission Code of Practice, national and local policies support and guide mental health nurses in practice. Currid et al. (2012) recognise that mental health nurses and other healthcare professionals have a professional duty of care toward the client to continually assess and manage actual and potential risk to ensure the safety health and welfare of the client and others are protected. Continuous quality improvement promotes recovery. They should have an awareness and understanding of a combination of vulnerability factors and impending mental instability that can cause risk to a patient (Knapp et al., 2012).