2 June 2026 Seminars

Children and young people's mental health continues to be of significant concern for national and local stakeholders. Delivering accessible quality care will require changes to the commissioning and delivery of services building on significant transformation and innovation taking place locally. The session will provide an overview of the national strategy and policy for children and young people's mental health and the subsequent implications for the commissioning and delivery of services.

Learning points:

• Understanding of the prevalence and needs of CYP with mental health needs and challenges to current service delivery.
• Overview of the national strategy for children's mental health
• Understanding of some of the current challenges with commissioning and delivery and implications for design and technology.

This presentation will explore the evolving role of window design for mental health environments, drawing on original research and over two decades of sector experience. It highlights the complex interplay between safety, therapeutic outcomes, regulatory compliance, and sustainability - all of which are critical to creating environments that support recovery and protect vulnerable service users.

The session is grounded in stakeholder-driven research, taking insights from a national survey and qualitative interviews with estates professionals, architects, capital project managers, and clinicians. These stakeholders shared real-world challenges and priorities, including ligature prevention, robustness, privacy, and the need for natural light and ventilation. Their input shaped the direction of our research, helping ensure that the recommendations and insights presented reflect the real-world challenges faced in mental health environments.

Attendees will gain a deeper understanding of:
• The regulatory landscape (HTMs, HBNs, NHS Net Zero Building Standard).
• Safety-first design principles and the risks of ligature, contraband, and escape.
• The therapeutic value of daylight, ventilation, and patient control.
• The limitations of current testing protocols and the need for standardisation.
• Future developments in sustainability, lifecycle performance, and user-specific tailoring.

A key safety insight will focus on the overlooked risk posed by ceramics and glass. The presentation will explain how ceramic objects, such as cups and plates, can shatter toughened glass with minimal force due to their unique fracture mechanics. This has serious implications for secure environments and highlights the need for alternative tableware in high-risk areas - a critical consideration for estates and clinical teams alike.

The presentation also introduces Britplas’ contribution to the BRE’s “Informed Choices” testing guidance, developed in collaboration with the Design in Mental Health Network. This initiative aims to bring consistency and transparency to product testing in secure environments.
Designed for professionals responsible for shaping mental health spaces, this session offers practical guidance, strategic foresight, and an invitation to download the full whitepaper for further insights.

Designing Calm in Crisis: Reimagining MHCAS for Safer Patient Care explores the need for a purpose-designed Mental Health Crisis Assessment Service in response to rising demand, audit findings, and national priorities. The presentation focuses on how thoughtful refurbishment and intelligent spatial design can transform existing NHS environments into calm, therapeutic spaces, even within significant financial constraints. It highlights how MHCAS can relieve pressure on emergency departments, improve patient flow, and enhance safety and dignity for people in crisis. By working creatively within NHS budget limitations, the project demonstrates how good design can deliver meaningful improvements to patient experience and care outcomes.

Completed in 2020, the Blossom Court inpatient building at St Ann’s Hospital in London represents a new approach to design for mental health within a constrained site. The unique two-storey arrangement sees four wards stacked around two terraced courtyards, creating a positive focal point for patients, and an abundance of natural light. A calming interior with views to nature enhances the therapeutic environment, promoting patient wellbeing and recovery, and improving the working lives of NHS staff.

The courtyard layout provides private and discretely secure space for patients without the need for fences or walls around the building’s perimeter. In doing so, demanding functional requirements are incorporated inconspicuously to create a normalised environment. With a simple palette of good quality brickwork, the building is designed to integrate with the surrounding community, to foster pride and de-stigmatise the mental health services being provided.

Initial feedback following completion was that seclusion and rapid tranquilisation of patients had significantly reduced, while physical restraint almost entirely stopped, allowing better focus on the recovery of patients compared to previous accommodation. This presentation will look at a more comprehensive body of evidence gathered during the building’s first five years of operation, from its general arrangement to details and selection of materials, and explore lessons that can be learnt to inform future developments of its kind.

The development of a new Urgent and Emergency Care (UEC) model requires a fundamental shift in both clinical pathways and spatial design. In the absence of established guidance for this emerging typology, the project adopted an extended programme of stakeholder engagement and co-production to generate evidence, test assumptions and inform decision-making.
Early design development was informed by visits to three comparable UEC and mental health emergency care facilities. These visits were attended by a consistent core group of stakeholders, including clinical leads, estates and facilities, emergency care teams and service representatives, supported by weekly structured workshops to reflect on learning and translate insights into design and operational principles. Direct engagement with local project teams during these visits enabled honest discussion around referral models, spatial adjacencies and post-occupancy challenges.
An Expert by Experience was embedded within the process and attended the site visits and workshops. Their involvement was invaluable in shaping how questions were framed and directed during conversations with patients using the facilities, enabling deeper, more authentic insights into arrival, waiting, assessment, safety and dignity than would otherwise have been possible.
Building on this established knowledge base, FSA secured a research grant to analyse and compare international approaches to mental health emergency care, including the EMPATH model and European crisis care typologies. This research is being used to validate emerging principles and benchmark the evolving UEC model against international best practice.
Ongoing engagement involved patients, families and carers, Trust leadership, clinical teams (including Emergency Department clinicians, mental health liaison and crisis services), estates teams, and bed liaison and flow management teams. A key area of co-production focused on referral criteria and transitions between ambulance conveyance, ED referral and walk-in self-referral.
The impact of co-production is evidenced through tangible design outcomes, including revised arrival routes, improved ED–UEC interfaces, choice-based waiting environments and flexible assessment spaces supporting both escalation and de-escalation. Continuous feedback created a clear “you said, we did” loop, ensuring the final proposals reflect lived experience and operational reality.

Disabled Facilities Grant funding has traditionally focused on physical adaptations, yet for people with learning disabilities, home environments that do not match individual needs can cause distress that manifests as behaviours of concern and impacts on mental health and wellbeing. Our design guide was developed through the Foundations Community of Practice for those with an interest in the home environment's role in behaviours of concern, supported by a student apprentice occupational therapist.

Working with occupational therapists at the frontline in social care and housing, we developed practical guidance for Disabled Facilities Grant-funded home adaptations that address mental health needs alongside physical requirements. Our approach recognises that behaviours of concern often communicate unmet environmental needs. Professionals report that thoughtful adaptations can reduce the need for crisis interventions, support independent living, and create more supportive home environments.

Our approach reframes behaviours of concern as meaningful communication about environmental mismatches. Instead of restricting individuals, we design out triggers through person-centred adaptations - creating sensory-friendly spaces, supporting self-regulation needs, and building in safe exploration opportunities. This represents a shift from changing the person to changing the environment, respecting individual differences whilst promoting dignity and autonomy.

The guide demonstrates how Disabled Facilities Grant funding can extend beyond traditional physical adaptations to address mental health through environmental design, including reduced stress and social isolation, improved sleep quality, enhanced safety, and decreased reliance on costly care arrangements.

This presentation will outline how we developed our design guide and share key guidance principles, including person-centred adaptations, creating predictable environments, and supporting individual expression through design. We will demonstrate practical adaptations for sensory needs, self-regulation, and safe movement, alongside ethical considerations that prioritise dignity and choice.

This session explores how one NHS Trust reimagined crisis mental health care through rapid innovation and environmental redesign. Born out of urgent necessity following bed closures, the team transformed  outdated inpatient ward into a new, purpose-driven space  initially an eight-bed “pre-admission ward,” later evolving into a walk-in crisis assessment service.

Within just six weeks, the team created a calmer, therapeutic alternative to emergency settings replacing traditional ward features with soft lighting, music, a welcoming lounge, and private assessment rooms designed for dignity and de-escalation.

Eighteen months on, the service reports zero serious incidents, strong staff and service user satisfaction, and effective management of complex presentations  Now operating at full capacity, the team is developing a three-tier crisis response model, encompassing:

1. Walk-in support – immediate access to care and assessment.
2. Short-stay support – up to 72 hours of intensive crisis work.
3. Acute assessment alternative – a bridge to avoid unnecessary hospital admissions.

Outdoor spaces in mental health services are often treated as peripheral, despite growing evidence that contact with nature supports emotional regulation, recovery, and staff wellbeing. Drawing on clinical experience as an NHS psychiatry doctor and research in environment and human health, this talk explores how gardens, courtyards, and grounds function as a largely forgotten part of the therapeutic infrastructure. It examines the tension between risk-averse design and therapeutic potential, contrasts staff intentions with patient experience, and aims to reframe landscape as an integral component of psychiatric care rather than an optional amenity.

This talk explores how inpatient mental health environments can better support people experiencing autism and psychosis, drawing directly from lived experience of being in inpatient CAMHS for psychosis, autism and emotional dysregulation. It examines how sensory overload, lack of predictability, and loss of autonomy in poorly designed spaces can intensify distress, while thoughtful design can promote safety, regulation, and recovery. ZeZe, a schizophrenia young neuroscientist will discuss practical design principles for creating autism- and psychosis-informed inpatient spaces that are humane, trauma-aware, and genuinely therapeutic rather than merely functional.

This session shares the journey of The Brook at Langdon Hospital, an inpatient facility for adults with a learning disability and/or autism, from early concept design through to completion. The presentation explores how a strong project brief, getting the right people round the table, meaningful co-production and a sensory-informed approach helped shape an environment that feels safe, calming and supportive for service users, staff and families.  

We will discuss the importance of early strategic decision-making, alongside the practical realities of balancing safety, robustness and clinical requirements with creating a therapeutic environment. Real project examples will demonstrate how small design decisions can have a significant impact on how spaces feel and function in practice — recognising that the first step of recovery is to feel safe.

Woodland View, opened in Spring 2016, is a purpose-built facility on the Ayrshire Central Hospital site, consolidating NHS Ayrshire and Arran’s mental health services into one integrated location.

The 206-bedroom hospital spans 16,100 m2, offering adult inpatient services, dementia care, psychiatric rehabilitation, and forensic services and from 2024 a new mental health assessment unit delivers care for emergency admissions. The design prioritised sustainability, community integration, and non-institutional environments to foster recovery and rehabilitation.

Inspired by the surrounding coastal landscape, Woodland View was purposefully designed to support service users’ journeys toward recovery building confidence, offering choice and paving the way for their transition home and into the community. Features like direct access to green spaces from wards have been transformative, significantly reducing incidents of restraint and violence. Patients can step into landscaped areas, connect with nature, and de-escalate distressing situations – sometimes lying on the grass to view the sky.

As with every aspect of the built environment, changes in regulations, standards and social evolution mean architectural solutions need to be resilient. Specifically in mental healthcare, changes in the human condition versus models of care can quickly impact the way, we as architects need to continuously challenge our approach to these types of facilities and how staff need to adapt their care plans.

In November 2024 Arcadis revisited this award-winning building as part of a Post Occupancy Evaluation to gain valuable insights into what design approaches continue to work well, whilst highlighting lessons learned for future projects. In 2026 Woodland View will be 10 years old – this talk will cover the POE in 2024 highlighting how the building has adapted to change with an update on the use of the mental health assessment suite and how that has impacted the community and staff.

Co-production and service user involvement are embedded in Pineapple’s approach to delivering projects in challenging environments. A structured, multi-disciplinary model ensures that the voices of service users and stakeholders sit alongside technical, operational, and strategic expertise. This framework enables the delivery of solutions that are safe, effective, and human-centred while maintaining compliance, efficiency, and sustainability.

Our engineering teams assess technical feasibility and performance, while compliance specialists ensure all solutions meet regulatory and safety standards. Customer insights and marketing teams provide data on user behaviour, preferences, and feedback from previous projects to inform usability, comfort, and intuitive product interaction. Clients and service users contribute through observational sessions, offering insights into safety, accessibility, and comfort to validate designs adjustments, improving user experience and supporting positive outcomes.

Engagement with wider industry networks, such as the Lighting Industry Association (LIA) and initiatives like Recolight, ensures emerging standards, research and best practice are reflected in every project.

Prototypes, mock-ups, and pilot installations allow teams to test ideas before full delivery. Post-occupancy evaluations and user feedback create a continuous learning loop that informs future developments.

Designing for longevity, modularity, and end-of-life recovery ensures solutions are durable, repairable, and environmentally responsible.

By embedding co-production as standard practice, Pineapple delivers solutions that balance safety, performance, and human-centred design with environmental responsibility, ensuring all projects are informed by evolving best practice, clinical guidance and real-world experience.

In healthcare, shame often hides behind professionalism, perfectionism, and the pressure to cope. In this powerful and thought-provoking session, Claire Goodwin-Fee explores the hidden emotional impact of working in caring professions and how shame silently fuels burnout, withdrawal, self-criticism, and emotional exhaustion.

Drawing on psychological insight, frontline experience, and real-world stories, Claire unpacks why so many healthcare workers feel they must “hold it together” at all costs.

Attendees will leave with a deeper understanding of shame, practical strategies to build emotional resilience, and compassionate tools to support healthier individuals, teams, and workplace cultures.

The refurbishment of the Children’s Outpatients Department at King’s College Hospital reimagines a busy, overstimulating clinical environment as one that actively supports inclusion and reduces anxiety for children, parents, siblings and staff. Funded by King’s Charity, the project covers the third floor of the Hambleden Wing and focuses on four key areas: the main and sub-waiting zones, treatment corridor and a new phlebotomy suite.
From the outset, collaboration and co-production were used to understand how anxiety, exclusion and sensory overload shaped everyday experiences within the department. Weekly workshops and engagement meetings, including regular site visits, were held with clinical, estates and charity teams, alongside parent-and-child shadowing exercises. These activities revealed how families experienced the space day to day. Parents and siblings described the cumulative stress caused by confusing signage, overcrowded waiting areas, limited seating choice and environments that did not adequately support neurodiverse needs, wheelchairs or buggies. Prolonged waiting, lack of clear focus for play and limited opportunities for privacy were consistently linked to heightened anxiety. Staff highlighted how these conditions also affected their ability to support patients sensitively and efficiently.
These insights informed a design approach rooted in emotional safety, inclusion and choice. The new layout creates a clearer, more legible sequence of spaces that reduces uncertainty and supports independent navigation. A centralised play area replaced scattered toys, providing a predictable, well-supervised focal point that reassures children and siblings while reducing visual clutter. Bespoke bench and island seating offer flexible, inclusive options for families, wheelchair users and carers, enabling people to choose where and how they wait. A calm, cohesive colour palette, improved lighting and acoustic considerations help minimise sensory overload.
An underused youth room was transformed into a dedicated phlebotomy suite, designed as a quieter, more private environment that acknowledges the anxiety associated with procedures and supports children and parents during moments of heightened stress.
Rather than a one-off consultation, engagement evolved into a continuous dialogue, with feedback from weekly sessions regularly reviewed and embedded into design decisions. This co-produced approach fostered trust and shared ownership, demonstrating how evidence-based, inclusive design can meaningfully reduce anxiety and create outpatient environments that are calmer, more dignified and supportive for all users.

This session explores how sensory-informed principles influenced product and finish selection throughout The Brook at Langdon Hospital. Using real project examples, the presentation will demonstrate how thoughtful consideration of light, colour, materials, acoustics and detailing helped create a calmer, more therapeutic environment whilst balancing safety, durability and clinical requirements.

The session will reflect on the importance of collaboration, early decision-making and challenging default specifications to create spaces that feel less institutional and more supportive for service users, staff and families. Practical examples will show how small design decisions can have a significant impact on how environments feel and function in practice.

The session focuses on practical principles for more inclusively designed mental health services. Highlighting how digital infrastructure can supports access, and creates barriers. I’ll give examples of where inclusive design works well and where teams can go further designing with not for.

Rethink Mental Illness is undertaking a programme of work to understand the systemic challenges in the supply and management of quality supported housing for people with long-term mental illness, and to work across three local mental health supported housing systems to address these challenges, pilot solutions and improve long-term outcomes for people with mental illness needing supported housing. We are currently facilitating the close involvement of national and local stakeholders, including experts by experience, in co-producing the design, development and implementation of housing solutions which address these challenges.

In mental health environments, every design choice has a profound impact on safety, dignity, and recovery. Selecting the correct product for the patient’s needs is not simply a procurement decision—it’s a vital part of creating therapeutic spaces that protect lives while promoting wellbeing.

At Anti-Ligature Shop, we recognise that one size never fits all. Each inpatient unit has its own unique blend of clinical, environmental, and human factors. The right anti-ligature solution must reflect this complexity—balancing robust safety features with comfort, aesthetics, and functionality. When products are chosen carefully and collaboratively, they not only reduce risk but also help to foster trust and independence for service users.

An inappropriate product, however well-intentioned, can have serious consequences: compromising safety, triggering anxiety, or impeding care delivery. That’s why understanding the clinical context, patient profile, and staff requirements is essential. Working closely with estates teams, clinicians, and designers ensures that the chosen product supports both operational efficiency and therapeutic outcomes.

Innovation in this sector continues to evolve—whether through load-release technology, tamper-proof fixtures, or softer, more residential finishes that reduce the institutional feel of clinical settings. But innovation alone isn’t enough; the product must be appropriate for the specific environment and the people within it.

Ultimately, selecting the right anti-ligature product is about aligning safety with humanity. It’s about designing spaces that keep people secure without compromising their right to privacy, comfort, and hope. At Anti-Ligature Shop, we see our role as partners in that mission—helping every decision-maker ensure that design genuinely supports recovery, not just risk reduction.

The presentation will cover many products based on giving a more homely feel, whilst keeping safety and robustness at the forefront. It will look at all spaces and best solution for giving a softer feel whilst maintaining best practice. Bathrooms, Bedrooms and communal spaces can look more like the home if we think more about getting the most practicable product selected.

Water Meadow View is Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust’s new £32M, 14 bed mental health support facility for adults with Learning Disabilities. Located on a 50-acre rural site within the grounds of Guild Park, the new facility has been co-designed with Service users, Experts by experience, Peer support workers, Clinical champions, Nursing leads, and families creating a true person-centred design. The new environments created support and facilitate the Trust’s Trauma informed care approach, least restrictive practices and Neurodiversity awareness.
From the outset, the aspiration and vision for the facility was to challenge the norm of inpatient MH building, create a holistic LD focused environment that responds to real service user need and want, and is unashamedly ambitious in its goal of creating an inspiring, therapeutic and restorative setting with a real sense of ‘place’. This manifests itself in a number of ways, from its idyllic rural, hillside location taking in breath-taking views of the surrounding Lancashire countryside, to its functional content including a mixture of traditional ES bedrooms and single occupancy flats promoting service user choice, empowerment and independent living.

One of the key drivers of the project was to imbed the new building into a supportive Community setting and help Service users stay connected with their homes, communities and loved ones. The site chosen, albeit rural, is on the periphery of a major new Housing development that includes new community infrastructure, civic investment and public amenities. The Master planning involved close liaison and consultation with Homes England and the local authority to embed this MH build symbiotically within the local plan.

The connection with nature and the landscape is a huge feature of the WMV project and design. This holistic approach went beyond minimizing environmental impact and looked to actively regenerate ecosystems and enrich the green context, revitalizing and strengthening community links and restoring balance and wellbeing between building users and the natural world.
Sensory design themes, when developed in partnership with service users, can create environments that not only meet clinical needs but also enhance wellbeing, safety, and autonomy. Landscape, setting, views out and connection to nature were key themes developed from our EBE/SU engagement workshops, and this informed the final landscape design. The question of ‘look and feel’ was also driven by the engagement workshops with the final approach to the massing, detailing and form directly influenced by this. Ie a non-institutional, intentionally ambiguous design aesthetic. The impact of co-production was significant, influencing both the

Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust is delivering an ambitious Green Plan to achieve Net Zero while enhancing patient environments. This presentation will showcase a range of decarbonisation projects, including solar PV and battery storage, heat pumps, EV charging infrastructure, and estate-wide LED upgrades. It will also explore initiatives to reduce waste and eliminate single-use plastics. Alongside technical solutions, the Trust is embedding a culture of sustainability through its Green Champions programme, engaging staff across services. Attendees will gain insight into practical approaches, challenges, and lessons learned in integrating sustainability into mental health estate design and operations.

Mental health settings often have limited access to outdoor spaces. Relaxation sessions, meditation, and access to nature have physical and psychological benefits, including enhancement of positive emotions and reduction of depression and anxiety symptoms. VR can be used to immerse service users in a computer generated environment that replicates aspects of the natural world.
With funding from Spark Innovation, 5 headsets were purchased and are being used across the mental health inpatient facilities in Galway and Roscommon. In the first number of months service users have availed of the headsets with positive feedback. Service users appreciate the availability of experiences such as walking on a beach, swimming underwater and/or strolling through a wooded environment. Through questionnaires service users have described a lowering of anxious feelings and a feeling of general well being. This project is aligned with the pursuit of restraint reduction and the promotion of the Safewards Model which is present in all mental health care facilities in our area. The next stage of the project is to introduce the VR experience for service users who are more acutely unwell and require further de-escalation. Using the headset in this way is innovative and new. We believe with careful risk assessment and supervision the VR experience can assist the service user to deescalate and assist in returning the service user to a more settled state.

This presentation shares learning from a pilot project using Ambivalent Voice Technology (AVT) within an adult autism assessment service. The work has prompted ongoing reflection on how clinical environments influence both the reliability of AVT and the overall service‑user experience. I will discuss the benefits we have observed, alongside potential unintended consequences that emerged during implementation. As AVT and similar tools rapidly evolve, understanding their impact—positive and negative—is essential for designing safe, inclusive and responsive mental‑health services. The session aims to open a conversation with others exploring digital innovation, encouraging shared reflection to strengthen future practice.

We excited to share our findings and next steps of a coproduced piece of research that how Soteria could be offered in the UK as an alternative to hospital care.

What we have to tell you:

1) What the literature worldwide reveals so far.

2) What staff and people with lived experience have told us they value about current hospital services and what they'd like to change,

3) How a Soteria type service would fit into our UK system.

Healthcare leaders often approach psychiatric emergency unit design with preconceived notions about what works, leading to costly missteps that compromise patient care. This session examines the critical intersection between architectural decisions and clinical outcomes in psychiatric emergency settings.

An emergency psychiatrist and a healthcare design architect will address common misconceptions that drive design decisions, such as the appeal of "hybrid" units that blend EmPATH and traditional psychiatric ER models. Through real-world case studies, they'll reveal the unintended consequences of mixing design elements without understanding their operational implications—from Joint Commission compliance challenges to altered nursing responsibilities that can compromise patient safety.

Drawing from extensive consultation work, case studies like the University of Iowa HealthCare EmPATH Emergency Department project – which had its disadvantages, the presenters will demonstrate how seemingly minor design choices—room configurations, observation protocols, and spatial relationships—directly influence treatment approaches, staffing requirements, and patient outcomes.

The presentation highlights a collaborative approach that integrates clinical expertise with lived experience perspectives. Peer support specialists' input fundamentally shifted design priorities from purely clinical efficiency to environments that promote dignity and healing, proving that patient-centered design isn't just ethical—it's clinically effective.

Attendees will learn to recognize when their assumptions may be limiting design effectiveness, understand the operational ramifications of popular design trends, and gain tools for aligning architectural decisions with actual treatment objectives rather than theoretical ideals.

The session would look at secure mental health ambulance transport as an extension of the care environment, rather than a purely logistical function. For people in acute distress, the journey between settings can be one of the highest-risk points in their pathway. Waiting areas, exits, handover points, ambulance loading, vehicle design, route planning and arrival arrangements can all influence whether a transfer remains calm, dignified and safe, or escalates into crisis.

Discussing the successful delivery of a new perinatal mother and baby inpatient unit, highlighting how co‑production, experts by experience and person‑centred design were central to achieving a safe, appropriate and effective therapeutic environment. How design of Perinatal spaces necessitates a balanced approach to risk and the importance of placemaking. Key focus on the benefits of adapting/repurposing an underutilised asset within an active health campus and reflecting on the delivery challenges of operational constraints on a busy clinical site.

This presentation explores the vital role of Occupational Therapy in shaping mental health environments that promote healing, recovery, and meaningful engagement. Drawing on OT expertise in human occupation, sensory processing, and therapeutic use of space, we highlight how design decisions can profoundly impact well-being. Key themes include the creation of sensory-inclusive environments that support regulation and participation, the integration of biophilic design and outdoor spaces as therapeutic resources, and the importance of therapeutically adapted seclusion suites that prioritise safety while preserving dignity. We will also shine a light on overlooked spaces - such as corridors, waiting areas, and transition zones, that hold untapped potential for engagement, connection, and comfort. By embedding OT perspectives into the design process, we advocate for environments that go beyond safety and function to foster meaning, autonomy, and recovery in inpatient mental health care.

This study examines the impact of ward design on falls incidence in older adult mental health inpatient care, with a focus on Australia’s emerging shift from centralised to 'decentralised / pod' ward models. In line with national goals to reduce restrictive practices and enhance person-centred care, decentralised ward layouts—often pod-based with segmented visibility—are becoming the new standard in older adult mental health services. While these environments aim to enhance therapeutic engagement and patient satisfaction, their implications for patient safety, particularly falls, remain under-explored.
Adopting a convergent mixed methods design grounded in pragmatism, this study triangulates quantitative incident data with qualitative insights from nursing staff to gain a comprehensive understanding of how physical ward design influences falls incidence and other aspects of mental health nursing such as visual observations. Quantitative data on falls incidents, extracted from the hospital’s RISKMAN system, will be analysed pre- and post-relocation (six months either side) from a centralised to a decentralised ward. Key variables include time, location, severity, witnessed vs unwitnessed falls, and falls risk (FRASS scores).
Complementing this, semi-structured interviews with up to 12 nursing staff—each having experienced both ward layouts—will explore their perceptions of how design impacted workflow, visibility, and fall prevention practices. Analysis will use Braun and Clarke’s reflexive thematic analysis, informed by Bridges’ Transition Theory to contextualise staff adaptation to environmental change.
Findings aim to inform future ward design in mental health, bridging clinical practice, service user safety, and environmental planning.