DESIGN IN MENTAL HEALTH AWARDS 2023
After Andy Powell had thanked the attendees and sponsors, and congratulated the award-winners and recipients of Highly Commended certificates, all the winners returned to the stage for group photographs.
ligature door handle is designed ‘to prevent this ongoing issue in mental health spaces, and add to the built environment without compromising safety’. Safehinge Primera said: “Clinical staff and patients told us existing handles are institutional, and do little to create a homely, welcoming environment, while also indicating a need for a new handle with a better grip. Architects were also keen to reduce (or remove) the negative aesthetic impact of the metal backplate used on our existing handles, which can look and feel institutional, yet wanted to retain the robustness of the fixing. We developed several prototypes, taking inspiration from handles in hotels to create various styles, before sharing these with the same 40 people to ensure the product resonated positively. This group were of all ages, heights, weights, and genders. Based on their feedback, we designed Suregrip.” The award was presented to the winning team by the DiMHN’s Philip Ross.
Service-User Engagement The evening’s ninth and final award – for best Service-User Engagement, also saw a Highly Commended awarded – to Gilling Dod Architects, for Aspen Wood, Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust’s new Low Secure Learning Disabilities Unit on the Maghull Health Park in Liverpool. The entry said the new building represented ‘a complete redesign of the service, the care environment, and Trust approach’, and, as such, service-users were ‘at the heart of the entire process from the outset, influencing the design philosophy throughout’. The winner of the 2023 Service- User Engagement Award, sponsored by Safehinge Primera, and presented
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by the company’s Birte Reiter-Millard, was Integrated Health Projects, for its entry, Building Together at PHC Lincoln. Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (LPFT) provides mental health, learning disability, and autism services across Lincolnshire. As part of its Eradication of Dormitories (EoD) programme, the Trust appointed IHP to develop two new mental health wards at the Peter Hodgkinson Centre in Lincoln. To ensure a user-led development, LPFT/ IHP assembled stakeholder sub-groups to participate in the project design. The entry said: “The self-named Building Together Focus Group (BTFG) – the sub-group of 12 ‘Experts by Experience’ – has ensured that the views of those with experience of mental illness and mental health services have been embedded.” While ‘embracing new ways of working demanded by COVID lockdowns’, BTFG took a proactive role in: l Regularly sharing/reviewing ideas and proposals with IHP.
l Presenting views and consulting with designers and clinicians around optimal solutions at fortnightly Design/Quality sub-group meetings.
l Monthly reporting to EoD Board meetings.
l Regular site progress visits. l LPFT also organised public engagement events and newsletters, detailing progress, and encouraging local people to have their say. Through collaboration, BTFG has influenced:
l Internal furnishings, and warm, calming décor.
l Room layouts. l Seclusion suite relocation (to support privacy and dignity and limit noise disruption).
l Maximum natural lighting.
l Courtyard design, planting, and murals. l Introduction of Recornect’s CoWin Play media units to all bedrooms.
l Accessible signage. l Accessibility design for wards and bathrooms.
l Design of ‘welcome packs’. The entry said that BTFG had ‘challenged perspectives’, such as when selecting internal signage – ‘urging consideration of language difficulties and/or intellectual disabilities of those experiencing mental distress’. Taking on board clinicians’ views, a solution combining imagery, colour coding, and numbering, was agreed. BTFG’s ‘sensory champion’, who has autism, raised awareness of lighting and noise sensitivities, and suggested interventions such as rubber feet on chairs. Another contributor, Gary, with inpatient experience at PHC, ‘joined BTFG with initial trepidation, but became pivotal in many design decisions’. He regularly visited site, liaised with the LPFT/IHP teams, laid the building’s first brick, and was interviewed by the BBC about his Expert by Experience role. These experiences and ‘restored
confidence’ led to his appointment by the Trust as a paid Peer Support Worker. He said: “Through involvement, my confidence in my abilities started to return. To feel part of a team – talking, interacting, listening, being listened to, encouraged, feeling valued, being respected and respecting – has been the best medicine there is.” This concluded the awards, and Andy
Powell thanked all the attendees and sponsors, congratulated the winners and recipients of Highly Commended certificates, and asked all the winners to return to the stage for group photographs. n
AUGUST 2023 | THE NETWORK
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