Long-stay patients in high and medium secure forensic psychiatric care
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Characteristics and needs of long-stay patients in high and medium secure forensic psychiatric care - Implications for service organisation
IRAS ID
133261
Contact name
Birgit Vollm
Contact email
Research summary
Patients who require secure hospital care are managed in different levels of security in NHS and private provider units in England. A proportion of these patients, particularly those in high and medium secure care, can stay in such hospitals for prolonged periods of time. It is possible that the needs of this vulnerable and overlooked population are not currently being adequately met. However, very few studies have surveyed this patient group and no studies of long stay patients in high secure care have been conducted to date. ‘Long-stay’ for the purpose of this research is defined as Length of Stay (LoS) of more than 5 years in medium secure or more than 10 years in high secure care.
We will be carrying out this study in order to begin addressing this deficit. The overall project will involve two parts: The first part is a service evaluation describing the current long-stay population using routinely collected data supplied to the research team in fully anonymised form by participating institutions. After consulting with the Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust R&D office and a review of the NRES guidance leaflet on Defining Research (published by the NPSA), we have concluded that this initial part of the project is service evaluation as the primary aim of it is to define and evaluate current standards of care. No intervention will be administered to patients during this part and only existing data will be analysed in fully anonymised form. NRES guidance states that this is service evaluation and therefore does not require REC approval. Where it is not possible to access the existing data in fully anonymised form from participating units (e.g. due to staffing limitations), patient consent will be sought to review the files of identified long-stayers through our research team.
Secondly, we plan to interview patients about their experience of long-stay in secure forensic psychiatric care. These interviews will take place in high and medium secure NHS hospitals across England. This is the part of the project that this application is concerned with and for which we are seeking REC approval.
The project is NIHR funded and findings will benefit clinicians, managers and policy makers by describing the characteristics and needs of the current long-stay population in high and medium secure settings and thereby providing essential data for the planning of service improvements for this patient group.
REC name
East Midlands - Leicester Central Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
13/EM/0242
Date of REC Opinion
2 Aug 2013
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion