Millview Hospital Risk Assessment

For one of our locations we were able to go to Millview Hospital, in Brighton. Millview Hospital is a psychiatric hospital run by Sussex Partnership NHS Trust. It is based in Hove and provides mental health and substance misuse inpatient care. The Community Mental Health Team is based on the first floor at Millview Hospital providing mental health outpatient services. 

There were a quite a few safety risk assessments we had to consider before filming. 

1)  Darkness; as we had to film after visiting hours (8pm) we would be filming in the dark. We had to ensure that visibility was acceptable as we could have easily tripped over, or walked into something and hurt ourselves. Therefore we made sure we had light to be able to see. 

2) Potential danger of pile of thrown out furniture; We were filming at the back and one corner was full of things that needed chucking out, we could have easily injured ourselves on this. Therefore we kept our scenes away from this area. 

3) Area close to 136 assessments suite where police/ ambulance vehicles may arrive; We were filming by an important part of the building where we could be in the way of police/ambulances, so we asked the parent/driver we were with to observe and advise if they can be seen arriving further up the drive so we could move out of the way, straight away.

4) Visitor groups(AA)  on a Wednesday often congregate outside main entrance; We planned to film in other area until they had left the entrance area, so we didn't get them in any of our shots.

5) Potential risk of patients leaving when they aren't meant to; Some patients could have left the building unsupervised and at a time that they weren't meant to, so we liaised with security and unit co ordinator to confirm our filming and gave a contact number of the parent/driver to advise if there were any issues. If there were issues we planned to return to the car.

6) Use of equipment to jump from bushes as appearing from height; We had to use a hidden chair in the bushes for our actor to appear to jump from, this could be dangerous, especially as the floor was quite wet. We ensured a safe positioning of the chair, a safe jumping technique to a flat ground and ensured appropriate clothing to prevent injury from the bushes!