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Quality of the environment

The vast majority of people that we interviewed during our visits to rehabilitation and continuing care wards felt that their ward was kept clean and our visitors' comments reflected this. Although clean,  wards were not always described as welcoming environments.

Comments from Commission visitors varied from one ward being:

"clean, homely, individualised - a benchmark of how existing older wards can be made service user friendly and inviting'

Another where:

"furniture is shabby, the carpet is worn and dirty (with) infestation of ants/beetles in the living area"

Locked doors

Almost a third of wards visited had the door to the ward locked during the day, or for parts of the day. On the day of our visit, locked doors were found in:

  • Ailsa  
  • Bellsdyke 
  • Borders
  • General 
  • Royal Cornhill 
  • Gartnavel 
  • Leverndale
  • New Craigs 
  • The Orchards 
  • Dundee Liff 
  • St John's 
  • Stratheden

The main reasons given were related to security or due to the number of detained people in the ward.

More than one in five people we interviewed told us that their bedrooms were locked during the day, without ease of access. Bedroom doors were locked in:

  • Ailsa 
  • Bellsdyke
  • New Craigs 
  • The Orchards 
  • St John's 
  • Dykebar

One person said that he could always get access to his room, but this invariably involved having to wait until the nurse was available. A number of people had a single room with their own key, so that they could determine whether their room was locked or not. In one area where we had previously commented on bedrooms being locked, it was noted that, following a change in practice to open bedrooms, the incidence of aggression on the ward had decreased.

The majority of wards we visited had a quiet area available. Many wards had converted what had previously been a smoking room for this purpose. One person, however, stated that there was no access to a quiet area and that if he wanted somewhere quiet to sit, he would just have to sit in the corridor.

Almost three-quarters of wards we visited had a room for visitors. In some wards visits took place in bedrooms, but these were often described as too cramped for this purpose.  In others, there was a flexible use of activity/quiet/dining rooms for visiting. In many wards, staff identified the areas available for this purpose to be inadequate. We also found little evidence of facilities for visiting children, or policies on younger visitors.

Only three-quarters of wards had drinking water available at all times. This varied from having water coolants, having the kitchen or pantry open, or making jugs of water available. Restricted access to water occurred in:

  • Ailsa 
  • Royal Cornhill 
  • Crichton 
  • The Orchards 
  • Stratheden 
  • St John's 
  • Galavale 
  • Bellsdyke