Protected engagement time in mental health inpatient units
Intended for healthcare professionals
Art & Science Previous     Next

Protected engagement time in mental health inpatient units

Niall McCrae Leads the postgraduate diploma in mental health nursing programme, Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery, King’s College London

Niall McCrae explores barriers to one-to-one patient contact and how these might be overcome by allowing space for skilled nurses to offer therapeutic interventions

Protected engagement time in mental health inpatient units is a fixed period each day during which administrative activities and visiting are suspended so that nurses can focus on individual patient contact. However, there are a number of barriers to implementing this strategy effectively, which include high workloads, staff shortages and lack of supervision to support therapeutic interventions. This article discusses some of these barriers and suggests that managers of acute psychiatric units should ensure that patients have appropriate emotional support, and that skilled mental health nurses should be supported to devote time to therapeutic interventions.

Nursing Management. 21, 1, 28-31. doi: 10.7748/nm2014.03.21.1.28.e1179

Correspondence

n.mccrae@kcl.ac.uk

Peer review

This article has been subject to double blind peer review

Conflict of interest

None declared

Received: 02 January 2014

Accepted: 26 February 2014

Want to read more?

RCNi-Plus
Already have access? Log in

or

3-month trial offer for £5.25/month

Subscribe today and save 50% on your first three months
RCNi Plus users have full access to the following benefits:
  • Unlimited access to all 10 RCNi Journals
  • RCNi Learning featuring over 175 modules to easily earn CPD time
  • NMC-compliant RCNi Revalidation Portfolio to stay on track with your progress
  • Personalised newsletters tailored to your interests
  • A customisable dashboard with over 200 topics
Subscribe

Alternatively, you can purchase access to this article for the next seven days. Buy now


Are you a student? Our student subscription has content especially for you.
Find out more