LIGHTING Making a positive impact takes time and experience
Whitecroft’s Karen Bramman has been involved in lighting hospitals for almost a quarter of a century. She said: “You know you’ve been around for a while when you are regularly upgrading your own lighting installations.” There are few lighting professionals who better understand the cultural and technical nuances of the NHS and healthcare, and fewer still influencing industry standards in lighting. She explained: “I’ve worked in lighting for 36 years, but originally joined Whitecroft Lighting in 2001. My original brief was to work across the healthcare and education markets, but I quickly realised I wanted to focus on healthcare, as it suited me and the way I like to work. I grasped the culture, and embraced the process. I was also always keen to get involved directly with the client, as opposed to dealing with the NHS Trusts at arm’s length via contractors, consultants, and facilities managers. “I didn’t fear having these direct conversations, because
I knew that’s where the specialist knowledge lay. There is a lot of knowledge you have to build and master when you start operating in healthcare environments, and you can only really converse with the industry once you’ve completed your apprenticeship. “For example, you have to adhere to the strict hygiene and
safety standards, and know how to draw out the things the NHS appreciates and values. It was at this point that I felt I was beginning to be useful, solve problems, and consistently identify, build, and apply, the right lighting products to the corresponding spaces. Looking back, I know it was my willingness to learn directly from the client that accelerated my knowledge and built trusted partnerships, because I have a number of long-term direct relationships with NHS Trusts built on those early big projects. “As a lighting manufacturer, you make a positive impact by
a long history with Peterborough, having supplied florescent luminaires to the new hospital, including to its specialist services Mental Health and Integrated Care Centre in 2009. In our latest project, as part of the unit’s natural lifecycling process, Whitecroft upgraded the emergency lighting systems and completed the centre’s conversion to low-energy LED lighting. Above and beyond the quality of the lighting systems supplied, I’d categorise the value added to Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust in three key ways. Firstly, there was the benefit of ‘institutional memory’, i.e. because we knew the space, the site, and the lighting systems, we were again able to work with the existing infrastructure to quickly deliver LED lighting, and integrate it into existing components. We utilised the existing luminaire body and provided a replacement gear tray and diffuser, so the client didn’t have to compromise, and did so without disrupting the specialist ceiling or the patients’ bedrooms.
Sustainability As at Southmead, this created less waste
understanding the importance of things like infection control, or the significance of lighting to patient comfort and wellbeing, and why it’s important to prioritise lighting in intensive treatment areas as opposed to those in back-of-house areas. “Get these things right and you can
become a valued conduit between the client and project stakeholders. For example, I’ve worked with contractors to help shape thoughtful design for the likes of stair cores or corridor space lighting – essentially just transit areas – leaving more budget for the really important spaces. Establishing these relationships, however, takes time and trust, and project stakeholders know I can help meet client and contractor quality and budget expectations because of years’ of accumulated knowledge. “The same goes internally at Whitecroft, particularly when
we’re assessing healthcare lighting tenders. Our in-house design team knows that when I’m reviewing hospital drawings, I can draw on the experience gained from dozens of past projects, visualise the space, and suggest effective and pragmatic design for different environments. It’s really about using real- life examples and experience to pick fit-for-purpose lighting solutions, and bringing the tender within the client’s budget. “Finally, what has been really rewarding is when I see
accumulated good design decision making influencing future projects, raising expectations in lighting standards, and improving hospitals. We regularly discuss projects with M&E consultants, and share how we’ve approached previous projects, what we applied, and how it could be improved on for the next project. This drives up standards for everyone in the industry.”
This hospital waiting area features Avenue Metro and Mirage 3 LED lighting.
by reducing the need to use new products and materials, which brings me on to my second area of value: sustainability. In order to achieve its Net Zero objectives, it is essential that the NHS replace its conventional lighting with LED technology, and at Peterborough City Hospital this has cut energy consumption by half. However, carbon emissions were also
reduced in other ways. For example, undertaking the product conversions on site as opposed to at the factory
reduced transportation by 50%, while utilising existing materials meant 35% less waste to landfill or recycling. The third element of value – clinical compliance – is in many ways the most critical. Working in a mental health facility brings with it specialist challenges that go beyond the technical, and the priority has to be the wellbeing of the service-users. At Peterborough City Hospital our brief was to upgrade the lighting in 200 plus rooms, but this couldn’t be all undertaken simultaneously, as it would have been too disruptive for patients to congregate in breakout spaces. We had instead to devise a phased approach. Working with the team, we
conducted a trial installation in a small number of rooms, and used them as a guide as to what time and resources would be required to complete the work in the unit in batches of two to three rooms at a time. This allowed the staff to support a small number of service-users at a time, and when they returned to their rooms the environment was complete and visually unchanged – an important factor for those that find obvious disruption to their space unsettling.
October 2022 Health Estate Journal 93
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