Rlchard Pettlnger

BROADMOOR HOSPITAL (UK): INCREMENTAL STEPS IN THE MANAGEMENT OF STRESS

Introduction

Broadmoor Hospital is located at Crowthorne, Berkshire, UK, some 40 miles out of London. It has two functions.

» It provides psychiatric medical care for the community in which it is located.

» It also has a prison/secure hospital wing in which are housed many of the UK’s most notorious, psychologically disturbed criminals.

84 STRESS MANAGEMENT
The working environment is extremely stressful. In common with many other medical and Health Service facilities, and the National Prison Service, the hospital has great dif ficulty in recruiting and retaining key, quali fied, capable, expert, and motivated staff. Prob- lems are compounded by having to work in a secure environment. On the prison/secure wing everybody enters and leaves through hospital security, which is opened when they arrive, locked behind them, and then has to be reopened whenever they wish to leave.