Board of Management Report on Solway Industiral Unit

Three pages of notes by R. A. Henderson, Industrial Therapy Manager, on the employment of the redundant Byre and Dairy Buildings by the Solway Industrial Unit, outlining the uses and potential uses of the buildings.

10 October 1968

1 document

An Industrial Therapy Unit was established at Crichton Royal Hospital in 1962 to offer a form of rehabilitative work therapy along factory lines. Initially temporary sites on the hospital estate were used until work was centralised in Solway House where a workshop was established after the building ceased to be used for patient accommodation. The Unit was renamed Solway Industrial Unit and approximately 200 patients attended daily. It was staffed by a Manager, three Industrial Instructors, six Industrial Supervisors, a Secretary, a Charge Nurse and usually about three nurses who looked after specific groups of patients. The Unit's aims were to promote confidence, self-respect and pride in achievement, and work there was viewed as part of the patient's overall treatment. Work was sub-contracted to the Unit by external companies with charges made for labour and costs, and patients could receive reward payments based on work and output. Examples of the type of work carried out include: assembly and packing (cartons, clothes pegs, book coverings, fireworks, tomato trusses); labelling (plastic bags, cardboard boxes); sorting and packing (powder sachets, nytron material); refurbishing and cleaning (wheelchairs, garden seats, scaffolding clamps); manufacturing (Christmas crackers, packing cases, wood toys, picture framing, printing, engraving, bird tables, plant stands).

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