‘FUTURE-PROOFING’ HEALTHCARE FACILITY DESIGN
Above and right: Manchester’s Gorton Community Hub is the city’s first facility to combine a complementary mix of health and community features that include NHS services, a job centre, adult education, and a public library. Arcadis said: “England’s Index of Multiple Deprivation areas lists Gorton in the bottom 1%, and co-locating all these services in one place can contribute to breaking the cycle of deprivation.”
and healing. By finding the right balance between the functional and therapeutic, these kinds of environments can help accelerate recovery.
Pears Maudsley Centre When Arcadis delivered the new Pears Maudsley Centre for Children and Young People in Denmark Hill for the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, we gave careful consideration to these facets. We harnessed innovative design measures to provide a welcoming, comforting, open-plan, green, light, and airy healthcare setting that can respond to the diverse physical, mental, and emotional needs of young people. Through extensive stakeholder engagement and consultation with service-users throughout the process, we could assess the real lived experience of the people for whom we were designing. This included an emotional mapping exercise to analyse their feelings about healthcare facilities to deliver a wellbeing-led space that would positively impact their healing journey. For example, a ‘green spine’ allows building users to easily access landscaped terraces and rooftop gardens to enjoy the well-known advantages of nature and fresh air on health and wellbeing. Replacing the formerly 1930s, cramped and overly clinical spaces, another great feature of the centre is that it brings together treatment and research in one place, cultivating a unified and collaborative hub at the forefront of mental healthcare. One major factor to take into account when designing for the future of the NHS is the demographic shift taking place in the UK, which has a growing – and ageing – population. Forecasts suggest that in 50 years there will be 8.6 million additional citizens above the age of 65. This adds urgency to ensuring that health and social systems are well prepared and
52 Health Estate Journal November 2023
agile enough to put in place the types of care provision that will be needed. As people get older, they may be affected by several conditions at once, such as diabetes or underlying dementia. Care homes, which already incorporate a good level of dementia-friendly design, can provide valuable learnings for all other health facilities. One of these is the power of salutogenic design, which flips the traditional approach by focusing on creating environments that support health and wellbeing instead of focusing solely on treating illness. It is more proactive than reactive in promoting health and wellness. Similarly, spaces should actively alleviate
anxiety, given that many find healthcare settings, by their nature, to be stressful and worry-inducing environments. Not only do healthcare facilities need to cater to a wide range of complex healthcare needs, but must also be silently supportive and sense- sensitive by design. We should configure them in a way that allows busy staff to manage stress too. Looking ahead at the development of the UK’s healthcare system, many of the trends influencing it are interlinked, and must be approached in parallel for a successful and comprehensive solution that truly stands the test of time. As mentioned previously, healthcare facilities are already transitioning, and will continue to do so, towards less institutional design and more calming spaces that can support healing. This can be achieved via a variety of design techniques, including maximising ventilation and natural light for airy, bright, warm, and comforting places that move away from dark, constricted corridors, and towards a flexible range of communal and private areas. Similarly, noise reduction measures, softer textures and furnishings, along with carefully chosen colour palettes and art, can deliver a beautiful and relaxing aesthetic.
Leading on from that, outdoor spaces and biophilic design will remain invaluable to creating the healthcare buildings of the future. Much evidence and academic research point to green spaces, particularly in urban environments, having a considerable positive impact on physical and psychological wellbeing, feelings of motivation, cognitive function, and rehabilitation. How we design and build all healthcare spaces must take this into account going forward. Biophilic design principles can also mean using natural materials where possible, or creating connections between internal and external environments (including depictions of nature through the use of art and colour). Stakeholder engagement should also play a central role from the earliest stages of any project, to enable patient-led, human- centric design to reflect service-users’ needs and wants.
Dyson Cancer Centre Encompassing all of these and other factors, our team is working on the new Dyson Cancer Centre at the Royal United Hospital in Bath, a scheme that effectively demonstrates how the NHS Trust estate has evolved over time, and how it is successfully adapting to the current and future landscape. Focused on the user experience, the centre provides a therapeutic, nurturing healthcare setting, and brings the majority of cancer services – oncology, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and research departments, plus a dedicated pharmacy – under one roof to expedite and bolster the provision of fully integrated, seamless care that makes it much easier for people to access the full spectrum of services they might need in a supportive environment. Bringing state-of-the-art research
facilities into the fold will add tremendous value, as teams can collaborate to
Used courtesy of Positive Image Photography
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