Anti Ligature TV Enclosure & Healthcare Facility Design

Health care facilities are including in their design anti ligature TV enclosure solutions, to protect the mentally ill who are in mental health care. By integrating anti ligature products into a facility it reduces patient incidents and attacks on nursing staff. What is an anti ligature TV enclosure? An anti-ligature TV enclosure is a steel housing that prevents patients accessing the wall mount, cables and anything they can to create a ligature. The steel housing covers everything stopping access. The TV display is mounted on an internal TV bracket that is attached to the rear of the TV enclosure. So when the TV is mounted and the front door is locked, the TV is safe from damage and cannot be smashed and used as a weapon on nursing staff and other patients in the mental health facility. To mount the anti ligature TV enclosure, you need to 4 anchors through the enclosure and into the wall that will take the weight. The design of the anti ligature TV enclosureis unique in that material cannot be looped around the housing when bolted to the wall to form a ligature. (This is sometimes called non looping.) Mental health facility design. When any mental hospital facility is extended or a new build is considered, the entire facility is designed with anti ligature products from the toilets, through to the emergency exit signs being anti ligature. Curtain rails are designed that when a load is applied they automatically detach the curtain from the rails, preventing any ligature opportunity. Door handles are similar, with the design being so that any material looped around the door handle just slips off without forming a ligature point. Again preventing patients from self-harming. Some may say, why? As a community we have a duty of care to protect the vulnerable of our community, this is for the sick, infirm, young and elderly. We have to protect them and try to make their stay in hospital as pleasant as possible. This is why some behavioural units encourage patient’s families to bring some home comforts in for the patient during their stay, so they have familiar things around them. If we did not care for these people in our care, we are on the wrong profession, especially since a lot of our war veterans returning from the Iraq troubled with Post Traumatic Stress needing treatment for behavioural problems they have encountered protecting us and our great country. By providing a comfortable and safe environment for them to recover in, is the best thing we can do and this is why anti ligature products are needed to ensure the patients are kept safe. ProEnc US offer a wide range of anti ligature products including their anti ligature TV enclosure solution, that has been designed with input from the Federal Mental Health Department over 18 months and is the only product to have passed stringent testing.