Role of Mental Health Nurse in a Forensic Unit
Bedfordshire University
Mental Health Nursing
The role of the mental health nurse MHN) while always having the same basic skills set will have a different emphasis within the various service settings such as Community, Acute or Forensic which is the topic of this essay
The forensic MHN specialises in the assessment and treatment of people who may be mentally ill and are normally in the criminal justice system with the service provided in a secure environment. They may also work with victims and others on the edge of the system such as those where other services are unable to cope with them due to their behaviour disrupting others (rethink 2011). Forensic means relating to the law (Kettles et al, 2008) but for mental health nursing it has come to refer to the setting in which the service is provided.
Such settings include: * A Community forensic mental health team * Prisons. * Secure hospitals – with a range of levels from low to high
Within prisons there is the primary level of health care run by the nurse and other general practitioners who are the first point of call in most prisons. The second level is the equivalent of the community mental health teams and is the mental health In Reach team, normally only a MHN. Very few have a full multi-disciplinary team (McMurran, 2009, p.72).
Within the forensic setting the nurse faces a number of challenges.
There are ethical issues for the MHN in offering an equivalent service. Justifying access to the health care they may need and not being judgemental no matter what the morals or beliefs of the nurse can be very hard with some types of offenders who may have committed horrific crimes. The Code of Conduct by which all nurses have to abide by states we must:
Care for our patients and treat each person as an individual as well as being an advocate to patients we care for. (NMC 2008)
Another issue is that the MHN won’t have ready access to the offenders and vice versa as the
Mental Health Nursing
The role of the mental health nurse MHN) while always having the same basic skills set will have a different emphasis within the various service settings such as Community, Acute or Forensic which is the topic of this essay
The forensic MHN specialises in the assessment and treatment of people who may be mentally ill and are normally in the criminal justice system with the service provided in a secure environment. They may also work with victims and others on the edge of the system such as those where other services are unable to cope with them due to their behaviour disrupting others (rethink 2011). Forensic means relating to the law (Kettles et al, 2008) but for mental health nursing it has come to refer to the setting in which the service is provided.
Such settings include: * A Community forensic mental health team * Prisons. * Secure hospitals – with a range of levels from low to high
Within prisons there is the primary level of health care run by the nurse and other general practitioners who are the first point of call in most prisons. The second level is the equivalent of the community mental health teams and is the mental health In Reach team, normally only a MHN. Very few have a full multi-disciplinary team (McMurran, 2009, p.72).
Within the forensic setting the nurse faces a number of challenges.
There are ethical issues for the MHN in offering an equivalent service. Justifying access to the health care they may need and not being judgemental no matter what the morals or beliefs of the nurse can be very hard with some types of offenders who may have committed horrific crimes. The Code of Conduct by which all nurses have to abide by states we must:
Care for our patients and treat each person as an individual as well as being an advocate to patients we care for. (NMC 2008)
Another issue is that the MHN won’t have ready access to the offenders and vice versa as the
Bibliography: Barker, P. (2004) Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing: the craft of caring. London: Arnold. Mullen, P.E. (2000) Forensic Mental Health, The British Journal of Psychiatry: BJ Psych, 176 (4), pp.307-311., RC PSYCH Royal college of Psychiatrists [online]. Available at: bjp.rcpsych.org/content/176/4/307.full (Accessed 13th October 2012) Reference list McMurran, A., Khalifa, N., and Gibbon, S. (2009) Forensic Mental Health p72. Dawsonera [online.] available at: http://library.beds.ac.uk/record=b1458019~S20 (Accessed 13th October 2012) Rethink (2011) Forensic Mental Health Services. Available at: www.rethink.org/document.rm?id=13626 (Accessed 12th October 2012) Rethink (2011) Healthcare in prison. Available at: www.rethink.org/document.rm?id=13549 (Accessed 13th October 2012) Nursing and Midwifery Council (2008) The code: Standards of conduct, performance and ethics for nurses and midwives. Available at: http://www.nmc-uk.org/Publications/Standards/ (Accessed 13th October 2012) Kettles, A., Woods, P., and Byrt P. (2008) Forensic Mental Health Nursing: Capabilities, Roles and Responsibilities [Online] available at: http://www.quaybooks.co.uk/Content/Site121/FilesSamples/670978185642362_00000000319.pdf (Accessed 12th October 2012)