Whether we’re consciously aware of it or not, our perceptions of a given space and the emotional responses we feel when entering it are influenced by the built environment. ‘Good design’ can mean many things, and what exactly ‘good’ is may vary greatly from one built environment to the next.
In your local corner store, for example, good design may translate to a speedy and efficient experience. In contrast, a more savoured experience would be preferred in a fine-dining restaurant.
What ‘good’ design is, therefore, is determined first by the purpose of an environment and how we want those within it to feel. Once established for a given space, those designing it have a responsibility to try to evoke these feelings through their design choices.
In the examples above, spacious, accessible aisles and clear signage may improve your experience and perception of the corner store. Whereas, ambient lighting, comfortable furniture and temperature, and an absence of excessive noise may improve your dining experience.
The same fundamentals apply in the design of mental health care settings, albeit with greater importance, where the built environment forms a crucial component of effective treatment and therapeutic outcomes. Good design in these settings has the potential to help service users feel more at ease, to smooth the transition between community and the care environment, and to communicate to service users that they are truly valued and cared for.
Safety as a baseline
Safety has long been the primary design concern in mental health settings, however, the need to create therapeutic spaces that support wellbeing and recovery is now recognized globally, evidenced recently in “The Role of the Built Environment as a Therapeutic Intervention in Mental Health Facilities: A Systematic Literature Review” (Rodríguez-Labajos et al., 2024).
Such research has led to great innovation in design for mental health environments, fuelled by a need for safe yet normalised spaces and solutions that support therapeutic outcomes.
Driving this innovation has been core to our mission at Kingsway Group since forming in 2009. Whether through anti-ligature Complete Door Systems or our latest safety & wellbeing technology offerings, our solutions aim to normalise and enhance challenging environments while still providing the safety and performance required to best support people during their most vulnerable times.
Challenging the norm
In early 2023 Gilling Dod, Kingsway Group, and Britplas embarked on a collaborative research and design-concept project to challenge the norm in mental health design and explore how therapeutic environments could be enhanced further. Known as the Co-Production CAMHS Bedroom Collaboration, the ongoing project aims to inspire collaborative innovation and show what can be achieved through co-production.
A full-scale concept bedroom developed alongside Experts by Experience at Caudwell Children’s Charity now serves as a demonstration of the project’s key learnings. The bedroom provides a uniquely homely feel to promote emotional safety and a sense of ownership and control; an environment to rest, recuperate, and heal within (find out more at www.kingswaygroupglobal.com/co-production).
Recent therapeutic spaces in mental health
Through ongoing research and the ever-increasing prominence of co-production, our collective understanding as an industry of what good design in mental health should look like continues to develop, and with it, the standard and therapeutic qualities of new facilities continue to advance.
London’s new award-winning 78-bed inpatient mental health facility, Highgate East, stands as an exemplar project in user-centred and therapeutic design. The co-produced facility provides a bright, spacious, and welcoming environment conducive to healing and recovery. And through carefully planned architecture and integration of community spaces, such as a public café within the building, it is playing a crucial role in the continued destigmatisation of mental health care.
An enhanced sense of control for service users
A recent focus within design for mental health involves creating spaces that provide service users with a greater sense of control over their environment. These design choices can help service users to feel more at ease, which in turn has the potential to enhance their overall wellbeing and improve their perception of the care setting.
This ethos was central when designing SERENITY, our new interactive wellness panel. In mental health care settings, service users can often lose a sense of control over their environment as some of their everyday freedoms may be removed to ensure safety. This loss of control can have a negative impact on their overall wellbeing and subsequently hinder recovery journeys.
SERENITY aims to re-instil this sense of control, allowing service users to safely personalize their own space through a range of therapeutic and intuitive applications, each designed through feedback from mental health care professionals to promote relaxation, aid de-escalation, and encourage proactive communication with care staff.
The wellness panel also benefits from an integrated lighting system that service users can intuitively control, perhaps setting it to their favourite colour or by activating the circadian rhythm mode to help promote better sleep. Staff can also benefit from this lighting system, remotely activating gentle observation lighting to carry out nighttime observations without waking the service user.
To help promote a sense of calmness and support relaxation, service users can select from a range of roomscapes designed specifically for use within care settings, featuring therapeutic scenes and accompanying sounds synced with changeable coloured lighting, such as waves rolling on a beach or the song of birds in a forest.
Supporting, not replacing communication
Another feature developed through feedback from mental health care professionals is SERENITY’s ‘Check In’ function, allowing patients to select how they are feeling (at their own discretion) from a range of emotions. This is then fed back to care teams in order to support proactive communication between service users and clinical staff to strengthen patient-staff relationships, as well as to help diffuse heightened states of emotion where necessary.
Research shows that relationships with care staff form a core part of the inpatient experience within mental health care settings, and that barriers to positive relationships can include “ineffective and negative communication” and “a lack of trust” between staff and patients (Gilburt, H., Rose, D. & Slade, M. The importance of relationships in mental health care: A qualitative study of service users’ experiences of psychiatric hospital admission in the UK. 2008). Methods of encouraging proactive communication between care staff and service users can therefore help to strengthen relationships, and in turn have a positive effect on a service user’s experience and therapeutic outcomes within the care setting.
Your Partner in Patient Safety
As a partner in patient safety to over 85% of NHS Mental Health Trusts, at Kingsway Group we exist to support you in delivering excellence in care. With over 10,000 projects delivered worldwide, we specialise in safe yet normalised solutions designed to support service user wellbeing and recovery journeys in mental health and challenging environments. To find out more about our solutions or how we can serve as Your Partner in Patient Safety, visit www.kingswaygroupglobal.com.