Changing landscape for patients and staff

 The 2010 award categories ranged from “Best interior design” and “Best use of visual art in healthcare” to “Best response to current patient safety policy”. HEJ reports.

Held in the Brewery’s impressive 18th century, timber-roofed Porter Tun room, the 12th Building Better Healthcare Awards were organised by the Building Better Healthcare team, and were endorsed this year by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE), and supported by the National Patient Safety Agency. Opening the proceedings was Stephen Vinall, managing director of the Health Advisory Business at Tribal Group, this year’s overall awards sponsor (other sponsors included “event sponsor” powerPerfector; sponsor of the “Outstanding Achievement” award, Gardiner & Theobald, and drinks reception sponsor Smart Glass International). Acknowledging that better healthcare buildings not only enhanced patient treatment and recovery, but equally improved staff working conditions, he warned the audience nevertheless that, with tightening public sector budgets, and falling land values making disposal of under-used NHS “assets” less attractive than it once was, not only would more efficient use need to be made of the existing healthcare estate, but that new, publicly-funded healthcare facilities would only be approved if they could be clearly shown to offer maximum value-for-money and revenue savings, and to meet strategic Government objectives. Adapting a wellknown aphorism from Charles Darwin to a healthcare context, Stephen Vinall said it was likely that, as societal and healthcare demands changed, “only the most responsive (facilities) would survive”. Whatever the future might hold for the healthcare estate, however, he commended the winners in this year’s Awards for their creativity, skill, and expertise in creating, and efficiently running and maintaining, a range of extremely varied healthcare facilities, the quality of which he believed would do much to improve the patient experience, and enhance the working environment for clinical and nursing staff. He then handed over to this year’s Awards host, television personality and “one of the mavericks” of garden design, Diarmuid Gavin. A presenter on the BBC 2 show, Home Front in the Garden, and a lynchpin in the broadcaster’s coverage of the Chelsea Flower Show, Diarmuid Gavin is also an author and newspaper columnist, and has become increasingly involved in creating gardens and “green spaces” for healthcare. Before presenting the awards, he described one especially notable recent such project, where he had worked with a project team led by Kieran Downes at the healthcare facility to create an attractive green space “for children to escape into” in one of the only spaces available for such a facility at Dublin’s Children’s University Hospital in the city’s Temple Street. Illustrating the scheme via slides, he explained that the garden had largely been put together off-site, with many of the contractors and suppliers providing their skills, expertise, and products, free. Designed by Diarmuid Gavin based on ideas from the hospital’s play therapists, the “structure” for the basement garden was constructed off site around a wire mesh frame, with timber internal walls, and, thanks to meticulous planning, was lowered into position by crane over a single morning, fitting neatly into a lightwell area in the basement adjacent to the hospital’s multi-sensory room. The landscape gardener explained that among the features of this “wonderland for kids” are a sandpit, two turreted playhouses; “surprise boxes” on each wall, hanging baskets the shape of planets, and even small aquaria, ingeniously housed within a former coal bunker that once served the Georgian house formerly located on this part of the site. The aquaria, which include several bench tanks on which children can sit and look through the glass base to observe the sea creatures below, contain a variety of marine life, including seahorses. Other features include multi-coloured, “interactive” lighting; a working train set running around the walls, and Punch and Judy puppets, all accommodated below the metal frame roof, around the perimeter of which, at street level, are a series of large plant boxes. One of the priorities, Diarmuid Gavin and Kieran Downes explained, was to enable the children using the garden to feel fresh air, wind, and the effects of the elements above them, while providing a stimulating, educational, and fun environment for youngsters who might otherwise spend virtually their entire hospital stay indoors. After discussing the project’s goals and talking a little about his other healthcare garden design work, Diarmuid Gavin moved to the awards presentation, explaining that, with a record 165 entries, interest had surpassed all previous years. According to the judges, (who included Jane Priestman, design management consultant; Ed Matthews, research fellow, Design for Patient Safety, RCA Helen Hamlyn Centre; Kevin Oxley, director of operations, North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust; Beatrice Fraenkel, chairwoman, Mersey Care NHS Trust, and Susan Francis, special advisor for Health to CABE), “each year the standard of entries has grown”. While a “positive indication of the ever-improving environment of the country’s health service”, the judges said the rising standard made their task of selecting the winners ever harder. This year each entrant had to provide a 500-word statement accompanied by a PowerPoint “package” of images setting out why their entry should win. Shortlisting days were held during last August in London. The 2010 awards were broken down into five main areas – “Patient environment”, “Products”, Estates and facilities management”, “People”, and “Building design”. Competition categories and winners were as follows:

Building design