A therapeutic suite aimed at reducing hospital admissions for children and young people with complex mental health needs has opened in Staffordshire.
The “peace pod” offers an alternative to ward-based care for patients with eating disorders, learning disabilities or acute emotional dysregulation – a condition where a person has difficulty managing overwhelming emotions.
The facility is located at the Darwin Centre, part of North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare NHS Trust in Stoke-on-Trent, and is believed to be the first of its kind in the UK.
It provides short-term, high-intensity therapeutic support and can be quickly reconfigured to meet the individual needs of patients, helping to prevent admission to the trust’s psychiatric intensive care unit or specialist eating disorder unit.
Glynis Harford, service manager, said: “The suite will form a core part of the ward, acting as a flexible space that we can quickly and easily reconfigure as a safe space to deliver more intensive support where required.”
Glynis added that patients aged 12 to 18 at the Darwin Centre sometimes require high-intensity, short-term care or support to work through “distressing emotions”.
Liz Mellor, chief strategy officer at Combined Healthcare, said the new facility would help deliver “the best quality care for young people when they need it the most”.
The development of the pod and staff training were funded by Toucan, a West Midlands provider of child and adolescent mental health services.
The Darwin Centre has also recently introduced a dietician and an art therapist, and upgraded its sensory equipment to support therapeutic care.
