Hospital designs are highly commended
‘Six Designs for infection Control', a body of work by a team from the Helen Hamlyn Centre at the Royal College of Art, has been highly commended at the inaugural Patient Safety Awards, held at the Grosvenor House Hotel, London, in February 2010.
With over 350 entries across 14 categories, the Awards celebrated excellence in an area that arguably presents the greatest challenge to modern healthcare.
The work submitted by the Helen Hamlyn Centre was part of the Design Bugs Out programme, initiated by the Department of Health and Design Council. The six designs include a blood pressure cuff which is easier to clean, and a mattress that changes colour when soiled.
The centre's specialist patient safety team visited hospitals, talking to staff and spending time on wards to discover areas where design could improve infection control. Their research led them to focus on six everyday items in the bedspace. Working with clinical specialists, patients and frontline staff, they redesigned these items to make them easier and quicker to clean. The concepts received positive feedback from NHS staff, and are now being developed for manufacture in the near future.
More on the designs here
