Operating from Blackpool in the North West of England, Primera Ltd is a successful and established business which in the last decade has become the U.K. market leader in the design, manufacture and distribution of anti-ligature door and window hardware products.

With a manufacturing resource based in Birmingham in mid-west England, employing in excess of 100 people, Primera has the technical expertise and agility to respond quickly to ever changing demands from the mental healthcare sector and by working closely with its customers has developed an unparalleled depth of understanding about the design issues paramount to care professionals working in the modern mental healthcare environment.

Primera has recently been nominated and shortlisted for a BBH Award (Building Better Healthcare – Best Interior Product) by Joe Forster, Senior Clinical Manager at Rathbone LSU (Low Secure Unit), Merseycare NHS Trust. Rathbone LSU was built just over 3 years ago and the ironmongery that was specified and installed originally came from our closest competitor. That ironmongery has proven unsuccessful to the point that when the Quality Care Commission Inspector visited to certify the building before occupation he found himself locked in the toilet and unable to get out without summoning assistance by mobile telephone! Primera products have now been selected as an alternative and the replacement program is under way due to the inherent safety design features of our range but in this case, mainly due to the fact that it is easy for the patient to operate the door furniture when going about their day to day routine.

Since the company was founded in 1999 there has been a significant increase in demand for anti-ligature products due to Government directives enforced in 2000 to reduce the number of suicides in both the prison and mental healthcare sectors. This was to be achieved by the introduction of design features that would remove the obvious ligature points from mental healthcare buildings (in this case door and window handles) and therefore lessen the risk of in-patients attempting to commit suicide.

Legislation in the U.K. dictates that mental healthcare patients (Service Users) must be afforded privacy and dignity. This means providing the Service User with an ability to lock their bedroom and bathroom doors to prevent unwanted intrusion by other Service Users. However, nursing staff must have permanent access to these rooms which has given rise to the development of sophisticated anti-barricade mechanisms preventing the Service User, who may be intent on self harm, from excluding nursing staff from their rooms under any set of circumstances.