ABSTRACT
Although the High Security Psychiatric Hospitals are surrounded by high walls and intensive security, those who work there are constantly under the microscope of governmental and public scmtiny. The smallest action can result in critical newspaper headlines. Many of the patients incarcerated there have committed such horrendous crimes that their names are notorious, and familiar to everyone who watches television or reads newspapers. Over the past 30 years a series of high-profile public inquiries has been conducted into these settings and, in addition, industrial action has been taken by the Prison Officers Association-a Trade Union to which many of the nurses belong. Psychiatric nurses working in the hospitals have been accused of meting out harsh treatment to patients and of being overly security conscious. In recent years they have also been accused of the opposite-of not being conscious enough of security and being too soft towards the patients. To be a service manager in this setting is to be vulnerable to the accusation, on the occurrence of any untoward event, of having failed. One way or another, many nurses have lost their careers by working there. A host of concealed dangers and traps thus surround those who deliver nursing care in this setting.
