Yes it can (and is!)! Dr Leighton Phillips Director of Research, Innovation and University Partnerships for the NHS Wales, Honorary Professor Aberystwyth University, and director on the Hywel Dda University Health Board joins us to share how they are bringing in Biophilic Design into healthcare in South West Wales. Part of his role is about questioning what we want the future to look like.
Dr Phillips shares with us how fundamentally important the natural environment is, how it profoundly influences our health and wellbeing. What he finds captivating about biophiilc design, is that there is an opportunity. “With over 1200 hospitals, and a million staff and nearly everyone in the UK having some interaction with the NHS services just imagine the health and planetary impact of the NHS embracing biophilic design.”
Hospitals historically have been designed with a particular modernist design approach, where it was thought that clinical settings which were white, were sterile. Of course, sterile environments are exceptionally important, but these environments do not put us at ease. We feel stressed in that setting and it doesn't aid recovery if we are talking about our hospitals.
Then if we consider that 90% of us interact more with primary care, the same can be true there. Leighton suggests that we can still maintain safe clean fantastic clinical environments while introducing colour, introducing fresh air, views of nature. We should not compromise all that we knew was good within that modernist period, but we can harness, within our current estates, the things that we know promote health and well-being and use every investment decision that we make as large organisations to do more of that, to support people and create environments that aid their recovery. Embracing the concept of Biophilic Design will drive this change.
The 10 year strategy with millions spent on healthcare infrastructure, which also sets out the future of healthcare, INCLUDES the aim to undertake activities promoting health and wellbeing. “We do more than provide services in hospitals and healthcare facilities.” It is important, he says, to “accept a wider role, in promoting health and wellbeing, and that the Biophilic approach and design is part of that. Biophilic Design keeps people healthy and well. Giving people access to fresh air, ability to walk in green spaces.” It is also important for staff to have their own decompression time, whether it is in the facility or in their own environment. Biophilic Design can help blur these boundaries personal and professional life, how we spend our time outside of work influences how we spend time in, and vice versa.
A change is happening
Things are changing in the UK, looks at the new Alder Hey Children's Hospital Trust in Liverpool, England, or the new Velindre Cancer Centre in Wales, these include the principles of Biophilic Design. While we can and should plan and build new hospitals inspired by Biophilic Design, we should also bear in mind that we still have to live with the current estate because that will still be with us. We're living with facilities that result from choices made 60-70 years ago. There's still life in those buildings and patients will still receive care, so we should also be mindful how we re-design and renovate our current estates as well. And if you think about it, ensuring success within current estate will give people the confidence to make wider changes.
Change happens within organisations because people want it and understand it. Of course you need high level ownership, but it filters down through the tiers of the organisation. To make a real shift you need 100s of people taking this on board, taking it into their personal day to day responsibility. Working with Professor Geoff Proffitt of Swansea University, Dr Phillips and his team have been adopting action learning, the application of knowledge approach. By bringing professionals together, from architects to medical professionals, building engineers, etc, they took them through a structured process over a few months. It was important that they step out of their busy environment and afford them some time to open their minds to biophilic design, and then critically to take that into their day jobs. To think about how a different future could look for our built environment.
How do we think differently?
Green groups and others within the organisation are starting to run with it. They have the National Botanical Garden of Wales on doorstep. “We are directly working with them on biodiversity and creating spaces for staff and patients to spend time in, and I believe to evidence change sustains the change and motivates people.” Show them this rapid evidence.
How do we encourage this take up on a wider scale? Show people and through every investment decision.
“Show people the positive impact biophilic design has. There is a pool of people out there who know the powerful impact that the natural world has on us. Within the Trusts or organisations, keep it real and applicable, ask them what environment they would like to work in, what are the restrictions, argue the case for change, they will have the answers.
Also, think about every investment decision as an opportunity, try and remember that you are working in systems that are under a lot of pressure, where creating space to think about how that environment can change in the future is difficult. Think how can Biophilic Design can be part of hundreds of discussions. Recognise every opportunity. Every investment decision is an opportunity. Think about the value that Biophilic Design delivers within healthcare, and all aspects of life.”
Regarding procurement, how do we value longer term investment, and battle all those tensions within a financially constrained organisation, there are tough discussions, and the supply chain has a duty of care as well, not to just peddle the same chairs, but to offer other options. We all need to be working together.
“Action learning is so important, bring all experts around the table, we do this journey together”.
To find out more about the projects Leighton is involved in visit https://hduhb.nhs.wales/
To buy a copy of the Healthcare issue that Leighton has written about this action learning programme he and his team have been running in the NHS West Wales, visit this link for the Ebook version https://journalofbiophilicdesign.com/shop/journal-of-biophilic-design-issue-3-healthcare-hospitals
or this one for the printed version https://journalofbiophilicdesign.com/shop/journal-biophilic-design-healthcare-design-magazine
PAPERBACK PRINTED VERSION nearly 200 pages of full colour nature-inspired design and ideas, just turning these beautiful pages is like a biophilic inspiration. This is an thought-provoking issue focused on Healthcare. How can we design our hospitals, doctors’ surgeries, nurses respite stations, patient waiting areas, care homes and more better? In this issue we look at case studies, including the Khoo Tek Puat hospital in Singapore, an NHS project, medical research labs and also the wellbeing of workers using these spaces.
Why are hospitals generally scary places? Why are their designs grey, angular, impersonal, blank, and even prison- like? I suppose it is a bit like what happened to our workplace design, they were “improved” at the turn of the last century to become factories of health.
But it wasn’t always like that. Even in the 19th century some of the buildings of hospitals, at least here in the UK, were beautifully designed architecturally. Sanatoriums were often in the countryside, had views of nature, and healthy food, and were designed to inspire feelings of calm and healing. In fact, we still have sanatoria now, think “health spa”. Just thinking of these places might conjure for some, places of luxury nestled in Switzerland, with crystal clear air, views of the Lakes and massive windows affording aforesaid- mentioned views!
See, my question is, why can’t our hospitals be designed with this mentality? I’m not saying that I think it’s practical, or affordable, to build hospitals in the middle mountains and allow time for healing, I’m saying why can’t we have the “spa” mindset in the back of our minds when we are thinking about creating spaces of healing.
We know that views of nature help healing, as mentioned throughout this issue, there are seminal studies, not least by the often-quoted, Roger Ulrich, who looked at the positive post-operative recovery among patients who had views of nature versus those who looked at a wall. We have thousands of hours of research that prove that being around nature, touching nature, seeing and feeling nature and a whole mix of this, helps us get better faster.
Surely, we are setting ourselves up to fail if we naively consider that the environment we are in doesn’t have an impact on us.
The origin of the word, Hospital, comes from the Latin, “hospitium” meaning hospitality. In the Middle Ages hospitals were alms-houses for the poor, hostels for pilgrims, or hospital schools, eventually manifesting itself in the Old French “hostel” which became “hotel”. Another noun derived from this, hospitium came to signify hospitality, that is the relation between guest and shelterer, hospitality, friendliness, and hospitable reception. One could argue that some hospitals are now so far removed from this concept that they feel the most “inhospitable” of places!
While the morphing of the name of the building may leave some eyebrows in the air, it should serve as a reminder as to what hospitals are meant for. They are meant to host people when they are at the most challenging periods of their lives. They might be having surgery, diagnosis, they could be dying. Why we should subject them to cold, unfriendly environments on top of what they are already experiencing doesn’t make sense.
Surely it also makes viable financial sense to help create spaces where they will get better faster (and therefore be less of a burden on the healthcare system), reduce the stress while they are waiting (and therefore reduce the short tempers on staff), give staff better respite and affords quality respite breaks when they get them if they have views or access to nature (which in turn helps staff retention, and reduction of sick pay, costs associated with recruitment and so on) and more.
We look at how we should be designing Cities to support health and wellbeing.
If you are designing with biophilia at the heart of what you do, thank you for making the environments you create, the lives you improve and the planet happier and healthier. If you have just started on your Biophilic Design journey, then welcome to the movement, together we can make the world a better place to live, work and flourish in.
One of the most exciting aspects of Biophilic Design is that it is based on Science. There is so much research on how and why this wonderfully simple design process has such a phenomenal impact on us. In this regular section, our ‘resident’ Environmental Psychologist Dr Sally Augustin shares thoughts distilled from piles and piles of research, presenting results, suggestions and further reading for you to delve into each month.
If you are an experienced expert on a certain aspect of Biophilic Design, or on how human physiology is impacted by their environment, please get in touch. We are also aiming to co-host a symposium with thought leaders in the not too distant.
Printed on recycled uncoated paper by a lovely environmentally friendly print company.
Did you know you can subscribe and become a member of the Journal and get access to all back issues of the Journal too? https://journalofbiophilicdesign.com/subscribe-as-a-member
Nearly 200 pages in this issue! Welcome to the third edition of The Journal of Biophilic Design.
Why are hospitals generally scary places? Why are their designs grey, angular, impersonal, blank, and even prison- like? I suppose it is a bit like what happened to our workplace design, they were “improved” at the turn of the last century to become factories of health.
But it wasn’t always like that. Even in the 19th century some of the buildings of hospitals, at least here in the UK, were beautifully designed architecturally. Sanatoriums were often in the countryside, had views of nature, and healthy food, and were designed to inspire feelings of calm and healing. In fact, we still have sanatoria now, think “health spa”. Just thinking of these places might conjure for some, places of luxury nestled in Switzerland, with crystal clear air, views of the Lakes and massive windows affording aforesaid- mentioned views!
See, my question is, why can’t our hospitals be designed with this mentality? I’m not saying that I think it’s practical, or affordable, to build hospitals in the middle mountains and allow time for healing, I’m saying why can’t we have the “spa” mindset in the back of our minds when we are thinking about creating spaces of healing.
We know that views of nature help healing, as mentioned throughout this issue, there are seminal studies, not least by the often-quoted, Roger Ulrich, who looked at the positive post-operative recovery among patients who had views of nature versus those who looked at a wall. We have thousands of hours of research that prove that being around nature, touching nature, seeing and feeling nature and a whole mix of this, helps us get better faster.
Surely, we are setting ourselves up to fail if we naively consider that the environment we are in doesn’t have an impact on us.
The origin of the word, Hospital, comes from the Latin, “hospitium” meaning hospitality. In the Middle Ages hospitals were alms-houses for the poor, hostels for pilgrims, or hospital schools, eventually manifesting itself in the Old French “hostel” which became “hotel”. Another noun derived from this, hospitium came to signify hospitality, that is the relation between guest and shelterer, hospitality, friendliness, and hospitable reception. One could argue that some hospitals are now so far removed from this concept that they feel the most “inhospitable” of places!
While the morphing of the name of the building may leave some eyebrows in the air, it should serve as a reminder as to what hospitals are meant for. They are meant to host people when they are at the most challenging periods of their lives. They might be having surgery, diagnosis, they could be dying. Why we should subject them to cold, unfriendly environments on top of what they are already experiencing doesn’t make sense.
Surely it also makes viable financial sense to help create spaces where they will get better faster (and therefore be less of a burden on the healthcare system), reduce the stress while they are waiting (and therefore reduce the short tempers on staff), give staff better respite and affords quality respite breaks when they get them if they have views or access to nature (which in turn helps staff retention, and reduction of sick pay, costs associated with recruitment and so on) and more.
We look at how we should be designing Cities to support health and wellbeing, the Science Behind Biophilic Design in Healthcare, acoustics, lighting, care homes, NHS, and more…
Did you know you have access to this digital issue for FREE if you are already a member of the Journal of Biophilic Design https://journalofbiophilicdesign.com/subscribe-as-a-member
To buy a copy of The Journal of Biophilic Design visit our website www.journalofbiophilicdesign.com or from Amazon. If you like our podcast and would like to support us in some way, you can buy us a coffee if you’d like to, thank you x
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