Design for patient dignity

Design for Patient Dignity has challenged top British designers and architects to work with the NHS to improve the experience of patients in hospital.

The Department of Health has teamed up with the Design Council to bring together some of the best minds in the design industry with those working on the frontline in the NHS.

Design for Patient Dignity is run by the Design Council on behalf of the Department of Health.

The project follows the success of Design Bugs Out, where the Design Council and the Department of Health worked together and in a similar way challenged designers and manufacturers to develop new hospital furniture and equipment that would be easier to clean and encourage improved hygiene - reducing patients’ exposure to healthcare associated infections such as MRSA. The prototypes, launched in April this year, will be entering hospitals in early 2010.

Six teams of leading UK product, interiors, fashion and systems designers, architects and manufacturers have been appointed to work on an exciting range of briefs that will help to improve the hospital environment and patient experience. The work follows extensive research into what issues matter most to patients, staff and experts and will focus on:

- New ward layouts

- New products which help provide greater privacy for patients within the ward

- New patient gowns which improve patient dignity

- More dignified toileting and washing facilities

- New ways of improving the physical and emotional security of patients being transferred within hospitals
 

The teams are working intensively with patients, experts, hospital staff and others to make some of their ideas a reality and to develop prototypes, which will be unveiled in March 2010, with the aim of introducing the designs into hospitals by early 2011.
 

The winning design teams include:

Azhar Architecture with industry supplier Grant Westfield will design a more dignified toileting and washing experience in hospital.
This could include the design of equipment, process and/or staff guidelines that address the issues surrounding the use of commodes or conventional plumbed-in toilets in these facilities.

Avanti Architects and industry supplier Panaloc Worldwide Manufacturing will design new ward layouts which can be retrofitted across a range of NHS hospital ward types to help deliver same-sex accommodation.
Billings Jackson Design and Nightingale Associates will partner with industry supplier SAS International on an open brief.
Design agency PearsonLloyd and industry supplier Kirton Healthcare will Design a piece of equipment or service that will provide greater physical and emotional security for patients as they move around and wait in areas of the hospital.
Together Creative Collaboration and Anthony Dickens studio who will be collaborating with industry supplier Suck UK Ltd to design a product or service that effectively separates male and female patients on NHS wards.

Designer Ben de Lisi and industry supplier Silvereed will design a range of functional patient clothes (which could include daywear, nightwear and footwear) that significantly reduce the risk of physical exposure, cater for differences in patient size, cultural and religious preferences and are appropriate for a range of activities including sleeping, resting journeys to and from the toilet/bathroom and leaving the ward. Specialists in healthcare design from the Royal College of Art Helen Hamlyn Centre have also been recruited to the programme and will be developing their own design solutions to the briefs. 
The six winning teams were appointed following a nationwide search for designers and specialist manufacturers who could together develop designs, as well as create prototypes and put them into full-scale production for introduction to hospitals. More than sixty design teams applied to the challenge, and were judged by a panel of the UK’s most respected experts in design, patient care, hospital management and nursing.