Flooring
IMPORTANCE OF SLEEP
Sleep is essential both for maintaining a clear state of mind, and indeed for recovery, and lack of sleep can also affect how you feel physically and mentally. Mental healthcare facilities can be noisy places during both the day and night, and the installation of carpets within corridors and bedrooms can assist with absorbing unwanted noise, which in turn helps service- users to filter out unwanted noise and aids rest, relaxation, and the reduction of stress levels. Furthermore, maintaining speech privacy in healthcare settings helps to reduce medical errors, as it supports open conversations among patients, families, and Patient Care Teams, and is believed to influence patient satisfaction. If patients are not confident that they have complete privacy, they may hesitate to provide complete information about their medical conditions and concerns, potentially putting their health at greater risk.
TREATING DEPRESSION Alternative therapies such as music can be used to treat depression, to reach autistic people, and to calm and relax tense patients. Service-users should also be able to play music, either as a form of expression, or to help with relaxation, and be able to do this without affecting other residents. Again, with the installation of carpets, the impact of sound and music on others can be reduced. Good acoustic conditions improve patient privacy and dignity, and promote essential sleep patterns. Such conditions are key to healing. In addition, good acoustic design brings other benefits in terms of patient and staff comfort and morale, as well as improved efficiency and usability of equipment. The reduction in sound impact levels can be easily achieved with the installation of carpet due to its natural ability to absorb impact noise via the fibres and backings. Danfloor’s Economix and Equinox Collection, which are specifically designed for the care sector, achieve a reduction in transmitted impact noise of 29 dB, which far exceeds UK Building Regulations.
danfloor’s Equinox Collection was selected for use at Junction 17, a specialist CAMHS facility in Prestwich for young people aged 13-17 requiring assessment and treatment for complex mental health difficulties.
ENERGY SAVINGS Unlike hard flooring options, carpet adds a warm and welcoming feel to any room, and provides a soft cushioned layer for extra underfoot comfort. Research suggests that carpet insulation is 10 times higher than that of hard flooring, and is one of the most effective thermal insulators.2 Studies have also indicated that the temperature felt by residents in carpeted rooms is shown to be two degrees higher than in rooms with hard flooring.3 Acting as a thermal insulator, carpets
improve energy consumption, and have low heat conduction. It is estimated that up to 30 days of heating can be saved by installing carpets, resulting in a 4-6 % energy saving, and a consequent reduction in energy costs.2
CLEANING, MAINTENANCE, AND INFECTION CONTROL There are many functional benefits that a carpet specifically designed for the care sector can provide. However, the question still arises
as to whether a carpet is an easy flooring solution to clean and maintain, and whether or not it poses an infection control risk. There is a school of thought that carpets create a hotspot for the spread of infections. However, research by Dr Stephanie Dancer4 from NHS Lanarkshire found that the most common MRSA sites within hospitals were bed linen, gowns, and tables, rather than floors. Dr Dancer states that cleaning should focus on objects which people touch – rather than on areas of visible dirt such as floors – to combat the spread of such infectious diseases. Furthermore, infection control teams often cite a concern that carpet is susceptible to contamination by fungi and bacteria. Again, studies suggest otherwise, including one conducted by Lankford et al (2006),5 which discovered that certain pathogens, such as VRE (Vancomycin-resistant enterococci), survive less well or for shorter periods on carpet than on other floorcoverings, including rubber tile, linoleum, vinyl sheet goods, and vinyl composition tile. In addition to discovering that carpet harbours less VRE, this research found that carpeting also transferred less VRE to hands via contact than rubber and vinyl flooring, and performed as well in cleaning as any other flooring tested.
Equinox Collection carpeting used within a children’s hospice. JANUARY 2018
20 THE NETWORK
CQC ADVICE The Care Quality Commission (CQC) categorically states that ‘There is no legislation that forces you to replace your carpets in favour of hard flooring or lino. You can have carpets as long as you keep them clean and infection- free.’ This leads on to the fact that a lifecycle cost analysis for floorcoverings in school facilities conducted by Jeff Bishop6 showed that on an annual basis it takes two and a half times longer to clean hard floors than carpet, and that the cleaning chemicals needed for hard floors are seven times more expensive. Therefore, just because a hard floor finish looks clean, it doesn’t always mean that it is. Technical advances in yarn technology mean that danfloor’s Healthcare Collection is manufactured with specially selected yarns that refract light and minimise the visual effects of
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