1.4.3 Children Visiting Psychiatric Patients in Hospital |
Contents
- Guiding Principles
- Admission and Assessment
- Postponement or curtailment of a planned visit
- Patients leave and discharge arrangements
1. Guiding Principles
The child’s welfare is paramount and takes primacy over the interests of any and all adults.
The child’s contact with family members should be supported, whenever the contact is in the child’s best interest.
The desirability of contact should be considered throughout the whole process of pre- admission, admission, care planning, discharge and aftercare.
The process for dealing with requests for children to visit family members, should not be hindered by bureaucracy. It should be supportive and maximise the value of contact, whilst safeguarding the child’s welfare.
Each Psychiatric hospital or hospital with a psychiatric unit is required to have a written policy on the arrangements for children visiting in-patients. In most cases the Trust will ask Children, Families & Schools to assess or give guidance as to whether it is in the child’s best interest to visit a named patient.
Consideration should be given to the appropriate use of other mental health resources to ensure that a patient/parent is supported in maintaining contact with their child/ren.
2. Admission and Assessment
It is the responsibility of the mental health practitioner (ASW) when requesting an in-patient admission, to record the patient’s responsibilities as a carer of a child or young person and to check with Children and Family services to see if there is a social worker involved with the family.
If the Children, Families & Schools Children and Family Division have current contact with the child or young person they should be asked to give an opinion to the multi-disciplinary team regarding any proposed contact visit. This may be done verbally or by attendance at the clinical team meeting.
If the child is a Child Subject to a Child Protection Plan or “looked after” and the keyworker believes it to be in the best interest of the child to visit, they should assist in providing adequate resources for supervision of the visit, in liaison with the multi-disciplinary team.
If the case is not known, but the mental health practitioner or hospital staff have concerns about the welfare of a child of the patient or a child visiting an in-patient, they should alert colleagues in the Children and Family services.
The referral should be recorded as an enquiry for a child in need and an initial (and possibly core assessment) will then be required, to decide whether it is in the child’s best interest to visit the named patient.
Contact arrangements made by the primary nurse will need to take account of;-
- the ward environment and current mix of patients (including the presence of any Schedule One offenders)
- The child’s age, needs, school commitments etc.
- the needs of the person acting in loco parentis
- the patient’s history and family situation and expressed wishes.
- the patients current mental state
- the response by the child to the patient and his/her mental illness
- the wishes and feelings of the child
- the views of those with parental responsibility
- the availability/desirability of contact taking place in an alternative venue or within the grounds of the hospital ie in a child-friendly environment/separate room.
- the timing of the visit.
It is the responsibility of the Ward manager or Primary nurse to ensure that a safe and conducive environment exists for the proposed contact.
When visiting takes place at the Mill View hospital, the designated venue will be the conference room.
At the Westbourne hospital it will be (to be advised).
When visiting takes place at a rehabilitation hostel, the designated venue will be in a room specified by the hostel Manager.
3. Postponement or curtailment of a planned visit.
The ward manager or nurse in charge may need to use discretion to postpone or curtail a visit in the child or young person’s interest.
The decision to cancel a visit must be put in writing and communicated to all concerned with the child’s welfare.
4. Patients leave and discharge arrangements.
Any risks to a child or young person must have been fully explored and suitable arrangements put in place before a patient’s period of leave/discharge commences.
Consideration must be given to additional support or practical help for the family.
Relevant carers and keyworkers should be invited to discharge planning meetings and carers informed of their entitlement to their own needs as carers, where appropriate.
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