Interior designs
End of life care: caring for the carers
In practice, care homes are becoming the new hospices, increasing emotional and psychological demands on staff. Julie Smyth explains how Springfield Healthcare Group at Wetherby Care & Retirement Village are setting a new standard for staff wellbeing
Across the UK, a profound shift is underway. Care homes are no longer simply places of living; statistical data illustrates how they are increasingly becoming the new hospices. Recent research from Nightingale Hammerson shows that 87.2 per cent of deaths of long-term care home residents in England now occur within the home itself. In one of their homes, 90 per cent of deaths were managed entirely in-house, supported by trained multidisciplinary teams, with 100 per cent of people in care homes dying with advance care plans in place. This reflects a new national reality: care
homes are now delivering the majority of end-of-life care and will increasingly do so as the population ages, frailty increases, and hospice capacity continues to contract. At the same time, the 2025 UK Dementia
Congress placed unprecedented emphasis on staff wellbeing, emotional labour and the psychological demands of supporting residents through decline, dementia and
death. York St John University professor of emotional intelligence in care David Sheard captured the essence of this shift when he observed: “Supporting people through dementia
means meeting them in their emotional reality, which requires empathy, emotional intelligence, and environments that support the people doing the caring.” At Wellbeing Designs, design for
wellbeing is not just a slogan; it is our design methodology, our ethos and the lens through which we analyse decisions. Wetherby Care & Retirement Village is a clear example of that philosophy in action.
Designing for wellbeing: a people first approach Architecture shapes how people feel, behave, and relate to one another. In care environments, this influence extends far beyond aesthetics or compliance; it directly affects emotional experience, resilience and
the capacity to deliver compassionate care. A ‘people first’ approach to design begins with recognising that wellbeing is not an optional extra, but a form of infrastructure essential to the sustainability of care. The approach to care design is not about
prioritising comfort at the expense of efficiency, nor is it a rejection of regulation, risk management, or operational discipline. Instead, it represents a shift in how design priorities are ordered. Traditional care environments have often been shaped primarily by compliance and workflow, with wellbeing addressed through finishes or add on features once core requirements are met. People first design inverts this logic, starting with the emotional, sensory, and relational needs of residents and staff, and allowing regulatory and operational requirements to be resolved within that framework. This reflects a broader change in care
architecture practice, recognising that environments which support wellbeing
July 2026
www.thecarehomeenvironment.com 19
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