Staff at secure mental health units in Merseyside have been paid compensation after being injured playing football with inpatients.
Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust, which provides the majority of the region’s mental health care including secure facilities such as Ashworth Hospital in Maghull and Clock View Hospital in Walton, has paid out on two out of three football injury related claims.
Football is a long-established feature of the activities available to patients detained or receiving treatment in some of the city’s mental health units.
The trust says staff are not obliged to join in but said that “participation in activities of shared interest can be therapeutically beneficial”.
But according to a quarterly safety report to the Mersey Care board: “There have been four incidents where staff have been injured whilst playing football with patients, three of these have resulted in claims against the Trust and two were successful resulting in costs.
“This has been escalated to the Secure Division.”
The report did not identify the locations and circumstances of each case.
