RETIRING CHAIR Q&A
All the award-winners pictured with the DiMHN Chair at the Design in Mental Heath 2018 Awards Dinner at the National Motorcycle Museum. Jenny Gill has had long-standing involvement in the annual conference (right), exhibition, and dinner.
conference, and receipt of The Network quarterly.
JB: What differentiates the DiMHN as an organisation concerned with improving the mental healthcare environment from other counterpart bodies (if indeed you feel there are any such organisations with directly comparable goals)?
JG: I don’t believe there are any comparable bodies working to improve the environment through design that focus purely on the mental health environment. The King’s Fund has done some excellent work in creation of therapeutic environments, but its emphasis is wider than our remit, and covers many other aspects of all healthcare.
JB: What have you most enjoyed about being the DiMHN’s Chair, and what have been the biggest challenges for you in the role?
JG: The opportunity to meet and work with some amazingly talented and enthusiastic people; people who care deeply about the environment from which mental health services are delivered. It has been an exciting and fulfilling time, as well as frustrating and challenging at times, but I’ve loved it. I’ve enjoyed working with so many inspiring people, and watched the
difference that the Network has made to environments.
The biggest challenge, conversely, has been to try to move the Network forward with limited resources. The Board members all have ‘day’ jobs, they are all volunteers, and sadly it has taken us longer perhaps than many of us would have liked to deliver a number of initiatives. The success of the conference, which has increased our income – although with no conference in 2020 we have to be a little more careful financially – has allowed us to begin to purchase certain services, such as administration and marketing, which had previously been undertaken by Board members.
JB: Are there any particular areas where you would have liked to have seen more progress in the past 5-6 years in DiMHN’s influence and activity? Do you feel these are now in the process of being addressed?
JG: As I’ve said above, limited resources have slowed down progress in a number of areas, which in turn has meant that we have not been able to undertake new projects. One area we have struggled with is service-user and carer input, although many Board members have experience in both areas. However, this is now being addressed, a stakeholder engagement strategy is being developed, and there
are some excellent initiatives planned for the coming year.
JB: Are there any new studies around the mental healthcare environment planned by the DiMHN, or indeed any new DiMHN publications set to be published in the short-to-medium term, either by the organisation solely, or in partnership with others?
JG: Yes, we are planning another in the series ‘Design with people in mind’, to be launched at our conference in June this year.
JB: Can you say a little about the process of refining, and getting published last April, the new, jointly developed DiMHN/BRE product testing guidance over the past 3-4 years, and how that has gone?
JG: The DiMHN/BRE partnership started in 2014, with an initial workshop held in Liverpool. Unfortunately, for several reasons, the process came to a standstill, and little progress was made. In 2018, a new agreement was signed with BRE, and new life breathed into the initiative. Philip Ross took on the project, and firstly arranged a series of workshops, which were very well attended by NHS estates and clinical staff, manufacturers, and designers. The outcomes from this resulted in the
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