A new campaign has launched to halt the spread of Oxevision, a system which enables staff to see video images inside patients' bedrooms
for the use of Oxevision at Rotherham, Doncaster and South Humber NHS Trust advises staff, “There may be instances when it is not appropriate to continue with an observation” including, “If a patient is in a state of undress” and “A patient is engaging in sexual activity and needs individual private time”. In such circumstances, it says, “An observation should be cancelled immediately”.
“There is a history of mental health staff sexually abusing and sexually exploiting vulnerable patients,” she said. “We also know that some people are attracted to [certain] professions because of the opportunity of taking advantage.” As well as the everyday activities of dressing and washing, patients with particular mental health problems, she said, “can do things like wandering around naked or other disinhibited stuff. And so, it’s just not safe to have unmetered access at that.
Stop Oxevision agrees. “For a lot of people, their mental distress will have an element of fear around surveillance so if you then put someone in a situation where you’re further reinforcing those fears it is only going to be detrimental,” a spokesperson told. If the machine is switched off it will remain in the room “so the fear is still going to be there”.
Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, which has discontinued Oxevision, said in response to an FOI request that in the four years they were using the system with female patients, “risk assessments determined the use of Oxevision at the time. Patients were informed of its use to support keeping them safe and this was care planned.” Asked to supply any patient consent forms used or to outline any other type of consent “by other means”, the Trust referred only to the above statement.
Another spokesperson for Stop Oxevision, who is a former psychiatric in-patient on a CAMHS ward, raised further alarm about consent for Oxevision when it comes to children and adolescents. “When you’re a young person in a ward, even if you haven’t been sectioned, your parents can then consent to things for you. So if you have had abusive experiences in the past with that caregiver, you’re completely stuck because all the consent stuff is deferred to them.
The way the technology is used by staff, with decisions being made remotely from another room, worries campaigners. In Oxevision’s own literature, it points to multiple accounts from staff describing how the devices have helped their work. In one “patient story”, a ward manager is quoted saying the patient “had attempted to ligate in the seclusion room. We could see that he had tied the ligature loosely around his neck.
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