NATURAL HEALING
Altro products have been specified in a collaborative project that has transformed patient experience at Salisbury Breast Unit.
The new dedicated Breast Unit at Salisbury District Hospital has patient experience at its very core. A truly collaborative approach saw designers, staff and suppliers work with patients and their loved ones to map every step of a process that is one of the most difficult anyone can face. The unit combines the latest ideas in biophilic design for wellbeing with the smartest products and solutions, delivered with impeccable attention to detail. It captures the needs of all stakeholders, and delivers without losing clinical quality.
The interiors were designed by ArtCare, the arts in health service for Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust, working collaboratively with staff and patients, and using floor and wall products from Altro. ArtCare’s Penny Calvert explains: “Décor can’t do anything about disease, but it can absolutely be used to make the best of the worst moment you are having – reducing anxiety has a huge impact on wellbeing. The designs are the culmination of more than a year’s worth of creative thinking and workshops with patients and staff, giving them the freedom to imagine how a space could be different.”
Key to the new £1m unit is the practice of same-day diagnosis – patients attending for tests to see if they have breast cancer receive a diagnosis that day, avoiding anxious waits for results. The unit is equipped with dedicated diagnostic equipment, treatment and counselling rooms enabling quicker care and treatment. Diagnosis and follow up are delivered in one place with less need for patients to visit other departments in the hospital. And clinics are run jointly with oncologists and plastic reconstructive surgeons, meaning patients no longer need to visit the hospital as frequently.
DRAWING FROM THE
NATURAL WORLD Biophilic design - the strategy of implementing nature into the environment – comes to life within the Breast Unit at Salisbury, as nature provides the inspiration for themed rooms: coast, river, forest, field, garden, and park.
“We looked at the patient experience, the patient journey, and consulted extensively to map out the whole process practically, but also emotionally,” explains Penny. “We used online scrapbooks as a tool to get people thinking – how do you feel, what makes you relaxed. And from this came the ‘world outside’ theme – the feeling of breathing in fresh air, stepping out of the situation. And also a real sense that nature gets on whatever happens: seasons change, tides ebb and flow.”
The waiting area creates a sense of calm: Altro Wood flooring, with clusters of sofas and armchairs echoing the colours of the floor to ceiling printed Altro Whiterock Digiclad panels – natural light floods in to help create the feel of bluebell woods. The focus was to create a space that barely feels clinical at all – furniture layout is reminiscent of a hotel or spa lounge, providing privacy in a relaxed way.
FREEDOM TO IMAGINE Photography is used throughout the unit, with floor to ceiling images on Altro Whiterock Digiclad used to transform spaces. These are not stock photography shots – they were commissioned as part of the project and show local woodland, rivers or countryside, real and local to those using the spaces. And their impact is powerful, as Penny explains: “The Tomography room was previously a windowless space, with only enough space for a chair alongside the equipment. The process performed can take some time and is generally unpleasant or uncomfortable. In the new unit, that space is transformed – your vision now filled with the scene of a local river flowing through a park with ducks and other wildlife, a focal point helping transport the mind beyond the confines of the room.”
16 | MAKEOVER OF THE MONTH
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