Transforming Health-Based Places of Safety

Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust has transformed its Health-Based Places of Safety (HBPoS).

The innovative project involved revamping its ‘S136 suites’ – places where someone needing urgent mental health care can be assessed for onward treatment planning.

The trust has invested in improving and expanding its S136 services, delivering major alterations and refurbishments to facilities across three hospitals in the North West of England.

Architectural, design, and masterplanning practice FWP spearheaded the project, providing architectural and interior design as well as project management and principal designer services.

Here David Simmons, Senior Associate Partner, James Halsall, Associate, and Nick Wiley, Partner and Project Manager, discuss their approach to the work and the thought process behind the design and delivery of the new-look suites.

 

 

How do you make a room that needs to be secure as comfortable and calming as possible for the vulnerable and distressed person occupying it? That was the question posed during this S136 refurbishment project.

The answer was the careful remodelling of Pennine Care’s S136 suites, with the design work centring on creating that calming environment, while making them both safe and secure for patients and staff.

The project has delivered significant upgrades to existing facilities, designed to provide welcoming and purpose-built spaces for those who need them most.

The work for Pennine Care was carried out in three phases. The S136 suite at Fairfield Hospital in Bury has been refurbished and work at Tameside Hospital has seen an existing suite revamped and a new second facility created.

The third, recently completed phase, saw the refurbishment of the S136 suite at The Royal Oldham Hospital.

 

Creating a calming environment

A Section 136 suite is a place where people can receive a mental health assessment and develop an ongoing treatment plan focused on their individual needs and requirements.

The suites have to be comfortable, safe and secure for people who may be very vulnerable.

The new-look suites at the three hospitals have been designed to create a calming environment for patients and an important feature in achieving that is the secure external ‘garden area’ that each has been given.

The carefully created remodelling of the suites by the FWP team also includes ‘nature inspired’ artwork, which has been specifically designed to be soothing.

FWP worked closely with the trust on layout and design as it looked to promote feelings of calmness and serenity throughout.

The creation of the outdoor spaces, with their gentle images of fields and hillsides, allows fresh air and a change of environment aims to encourage and help the patient feel calmer.

Internally, the use of natural light, the carefully considered colour choices and the temperature and the air quality of the suites all work together to add to that sense of calm.

Importantly, the facilities have been created to ensure the safety and security of patients and staff.

The benefits of external space

The design team working on the project stressed the importance of having outdoor areas included in the remodelling work.

There is much evidence that shows the importance of outdoor space, offering fresh air and being a catalyst to recovery, while promoting a peaceful mind and lowering anxieties.

The entrance into two of the suites is through that external space, with the hope that being introduced to this calmer-looking environment will assist in lowering anxiety and be less stressful for the person than being brought through hospital corridors.

The external secure fencing is image-based and looks to create a relaxed, flower meadow feeling, rather than being enclosed by steel fencing.

That attention to detail and the ethos of being ‘calmed by nature’ runs throughout the design process with the aim of reducing feelings of stress or anger.

The flowering meadow imagery is repeated inside the 136 suites, to also help in lowering anxiety, as well as creating stimulus and interest points.

It is an approach that delivers an environment that is infinitely more preferable and pleasant for the occupant, compared to having nothing but four plain walls to look at.

Secure television screens have been built into the walls, to again offer a focal point, as well as a way to give the suite a more ‘homey’ feeling for the patient.

Added to that there is also a beanbag in each room to offer a more relaxing seated or lying down position for the patient whilst watching TV, sleeping or resting.

 

Taking a gentle tone

The walls and floors of the suite are formed in resin and are very robust. However, a gentle colour tone has been adopted to create the muted and relaxing environment that has been achieved and to give an airy and spacious feel to the facility.

Plain and understated colours have been carefully chosen by the design team.

Those same light colour tones have been repeated in the ensuite facilities, both to keep things simple and to not add any confusion for the occupant as they move from one part of the suite to another.

The ensuite fittings and controls are all secure, simple and easy to work. The doors to the ensuites have been made from a soft, detachable foam, again with a meadow image printed on them, continuing that central theme of being ‘calmed by nature’.

Large unobstructed glass vision windows enable every part of the internal 136 suite to be viewed by eye, there are also cameras to pick up all its areas, including the external spaces.

The specially designed secure beds in all the facilities have rounded edges and their gentle, understated colour matches their surroundings.

Architraves and window surrounds are all white, to give a less harsh feel.