LIGHTING SYSTEMS
having supplied florescent luminaires to the new hospital, including its specialist services Mental Health and Integrated Care Centre, in 2009. Our latest project, as part of the Centre’s natural lifecycling process, saw Whitecroft upgrade the emergency lighting systems, and complete the centre’s conversion to low-energy LED lighting. Above and beyond the quality of the lighting systems supplied, I would categorise the value added to Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust in four ways. Firstly, there was the benefit of institutional memory; since 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 used the existing luminaire body, and provided a replacement gear tray and diffuser, so the client did not have to compromise, and did so without disrupting the specialist ceiling or the service-users’ bedrooms. This created less waste by reducing the need to use new products and materials, which brings me on to my second area of value: sustainability.
Energy consumption cut by half To hit its Net Zero objectives, it is essential that the NHS replaces its conventional lighting with LED technology, and in this instance in Peterborough this has cut energy consumption by half. However, carbon emissions were lowered further in other ways. For example, undertaking the product conversions on site, as opposed to at the factory, reduced transportation by 50%, while using existing materials meant that 35% less waste went to landfill or recycling. The third element of value – clinical
compliance – is in many ways the most critical. Working in a mental healthcare facility brings specialist challenges that go beyond the technical, and the priority must be the safety and wellbeing of service-users and staff. At Peterborough, our brief was to upgrade the lighting in
Karen Bramman
Karen Bramman is Healthcare Sales director at Whitecroft Lighting. She said: “It was not long after joining Whitecroft in 2001 that I took the opportunity to focus on specialist healthcare lighting projects, and 22 years on I’m still working in that space; it has become something of a professional home. Looking back, I quickly felt comfortable and suited to healthcare. I feel I understood and embraced the culture, and grasped what the client was trying to achieve. I’ve always enjoyed working directly with the client, particularly NHS Trusts, as this gives me access to undiluted information, which is invaluable to manufacturers, who often sit at the end of supply chains that can include contractors, consultants, and Facilities managers.
The client holds the knowledge and is the best place to learn, and this is particularly true in specialist care units, where all aspects must now be geared towards assessment and recovery of service-users, with everyone working to that aim. Sometimes the best way for specialist suppliers to obtain the information they need is to go directly to those working on the ground, and then ensure that the knowledge, standards, and best practice, are retained, fed in, and incorporated from project-to-project. I have now managed over 30 installations in mental healthcare facilities, and I’d characterise it as one of the most nuanced and complex healthcare environments. This is both a challenge and an opportunity for us – a challenge because of the specialist needs of service-users and staff, but also an opportunity because of the significant contribution lighting can make to treatment and recovery. Our most recent mental healthcare project in Peterborough is a good example of layers of specialist knowledge, and it feels very rewarding when I see accumulated good design decision- making influencing future projects and raising expectations in lighting standards.”
38 FEBRUARY 2023 | THE NETWORK
A visiting room at a new psychiatric hospital. Alongside the quality and robustness of fixtures and fittings, the performance and fitness for purpose of the lighting in mental healthcare facilities is a key consideration for designers and architects.
over 200 rooms, but this could not all be undertaken simultaneously, as it would be too disruptive for inpatients to congregate in breakout spaces. We had to devise a phased approach.
Trial installation Working with the FM team, we did 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 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, a key factor for those that find obvious disruption to their space unsettling and disturbing, which we must avoid at all costs. Such was the success of this approach that Cambridgeshire
and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust has instructed Whitecroft to replace all its corridor lighting in a similar manner. I have already touched on the homely
but robust nature of the lighting, but we also had to include other factors into the design specification. For example, some service-users receiving support for conditions such as paranoid schizophrenia can feel threatened by red LED on-lights, which can be interpreted as cameras or recording devices, so these must be designed out of lighting products. Whitecroft can also custom design lighting controls, and mental health service- users can benefit from subtle changes to the way that lighting is turned off and on. Sudden changes from dark to full brightness and vice-versa can be startling, so lighting can be programmed to fade up and down gradually, giving people time to adjust.
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