Product design
at the same time allow staff to check on patients, and they make both staff and service-users feel safe. En-suite doors, however, are different; they play a very different role. Their main purpose is privacy and dignity, allowing staff to carry out observations while the bathroom is being used, yet patients are hidden from view and, as such, the en suite is a key problem area.”
‘TWEAKING’ THE DESIGN Once the first prototypes have been tested, the designers go back to concept development before repeating the prototype and testing stage once again. “It’s a looping process of design ideas, prototypes, and feedback,” explains Philip Ross. “This layer-on-layer approach enables us to make design tweaks over time until we believe we’ve met our original design brief.”
Next is a customer feedback exercise, similar to that carried out at the Design in Mental Health Exhibition last May. Events like this are critical for our design process – because we gain a mass of customer feedback in a very short period of time. During this stage, customers are invited in to test a near-completed product and to take part in workshops. “More often than not,” explains Philip Ross, “when we showcase the products for the first time, it is very different to what we and customers thought we would end up designing. I was particularly surprised with this (the Symphony en-suite door) product, as I didn’t expect it to be a load-release design, but when you go through the process, you realise it’s the only safe option.”
THE ‘SOFT LAUNCH’ Our product designs are fine-tuned even further, incorporating feedback from this latest round of customer meetings and tests, after which they go through further abuse testing before a ‘soft launch’. This could be in a ward which is being refurbished or is empty, providing the real-life environment, but ensuring that no patients are at risk, and that there is no disruption to services. “Some companies will send products which are still in prototype stage onto wards, but we never do that,” says Philip Ross. “We have a rule that we do not allow prototypes into a live environment because, more often than not, this is inherently risky. “If you put in a product that hasn’t been fully tested, six months down the line when you find a problem you have got to go in and change everything across many sites. This has a disproportionate impact on services – unnecessarily disturbing recovery and potentially putting lives at risk. Safehinge Primera products only make it onto the market when both we and our customers are fully satisfied that they meet the brief.”
PERSONALISATION ELEMENT The final design for the Symphony en-suite door uses lightweight, flexible leaves which can be printed with images, patterns, or semi- transparent colours so that service-users can personalise their bedrooms, and designers can create modern, recovery-focused environments with vibrant, uplifting designs. Instead of ordering 10 doorsets for 10 rooms, we encourage care providers to order extra leaves
26 THE NETWORK JANUARY 2018
The final design for the Symphony en-suite door uses lightweight, flexible leaves which can be printed with images, patterns, or semi-transparent colours.
so that they can offer service-users the chance to personalise their bedrooms.
The door is fixed to an existing timber door frame with four magnetic pivots, onto which the door leaves then attach in seconds. This design provides no known ligature points, giving services-users an element of privacy, but enabling staff to carry out observations – similar to leisure centre cubicle designs. Our team isn’t stopping there, however. They are now going back to look at the stalled lock-off function, which would enable staff to prevent the door from being used when required.
EVERY AVENUE COVERED Gus Thomas says: “It’s about making sure that every avenue and consideration is covered so that the environment is as safe as it can be, and staff can continue with their day-to-day duties of helping patients with their recovery. We were asked to solve the ligature problem first, but now we are going to be going back and exploring ways we can incorporate a lock-off function. Our design process is never-ending, but it’s important that the products we put onto the market address the safety issues and are fit for purpose.”
Shaun Ridley and Safehinge Primera
Shaun Ridley is one of five product designers at Safehinge Primera. The design engineer joined the company in 2012 after completing a five-year product design engineering course at the University of Strathclyde, and undertaking work experience with the door hardware specialist as part of his Master’s degree.
Founded in 2007 by
directors Martin Izod and Phillip Ross, Safehinge was built on the premise of developing best-in- class-products, and in 2014 – the year following Shaun Ridley’s arrival – the company entered the mental health sector, designing a Symphony doorset range, which it says ‘has been embraced by the mental health community across the UK’. This award-winning product range has continued to expand as Shaun and his fellow design engineers continuously place the customer at the heart of their design process.
Primera joined Safehinge in 2016, marking the combination of two award-winning design and engineering teams, which claim – as Safehinge Primera – together to be ‘driving forward innovation, and raising the standards of safety and design in mental health’.
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