3 June 2026 Seminars

Join Laura Baker, Interim National Deputy Director for Mental Health, and Raf  Hamaizia from Cygnet, in exploring the regulators' perspective on safe, compassionate and effective environments in mental health settings. In this session, Laura will look across the picture of quality in services that CQC hold, highlighting what’s working well in practice and showcasing some examples of good practice.

Immersive technologies are transforming mental health care by creating safe, controlled environments for assessment and treatment. Examples include: exposure therapy for anxiety, phobias, and PTSD, allowing patients to confront triggers gradually and safely; mindfulness and stress reduction; and psychoeducation through interactive, engaging experiences. Clinicians can personalize interventions using real-time data and track progress more accurately. As access improves, immersive technology has the potential to expand mental health services, utilising restricted physical space environments, and to deliver scalable, effective support alongside traditional clinical settings.

This presentation reports on a doctoral study presenting emerging findings on the role of sensory interventions in adult mental health. Sensory interventions draw on the understanding that sensory processing influences arousal, regulation, and participation, and are increasingly valued for supporting recovery, reducing distress, and promoting meaningful engagement. Yet, despite their growing use, there are significant gaps in evidence about what works, for whom, and how these approaches can be effectively implemented.

This qualitative study explores the perspectives of expert occupational therapists and sensory practitioners across diverse international contexts. The aims are to examine: (1) how sensory interventions are understood, adopted, and applied in practice; (2) the key factors that influence implementation; and (3) future recommendations for professional practice.

Following ethical approval in 2025, interviews commenced with participants representing 10 countries and a wide range of clinical, educational, and policy roles. This presentation will provide a synthesis of perspectives, highlighting convergences and divergences. Emerging themes include occupational therapy identity, theoretical uncertainty, environment as a key lever, practice challenges linked to evidence and resources, and outcomes related to participation and recovery. Participants also proposed future directions for training, policy, and service development.

This session examines how AI can support estates teams to capture, access and share guidance, evidence and local learning more effectively. It highlights the limits of general AI, the value of domain-specific tools, and practical ways to build safe, human-in-the-loop workflows for compliance and operational decisions. It also addresses the impact of “brain drain” in the NHS, where the loss of experienced staff leads to gaps in operational knowledge, decision context, and trusted working relationships.

Digital technologies can support recovery and wellbeing, but they also risk eroding trust when users feel monitored rather than understood. This presentation shares practice-based learning from a collaborative project that explored how behavioural analytics can be used to promote emotional safety rather than surveillance.

Working through IdeaChef CIC’s social-innovation programme, a multidisciplinary team of designers, clinicians, and service users co-created a privacy-preserving framework for mapping online stress patterns and resilience factors. The process emphasised transparency, consent, and psychological safety.

The session will trace the journey from early consultation to prototype testing, highlighting the ethical tensions that emerged, how participants resolved them, and what principles now guide responsible digital-mental-health design.

Rather than focusing on a commercial product, the talk reflects on what worked, what changed, and how co-production reshaped assumptions about data, risk, and agency. Attendees will gain practical insights into:

This conference presentation will launch the latest publication from the Design with People in Mind series, Dignity by Design. The presentation will bring to life some of the key aspects of the new publication. We will explore the conceptual proposition that dignity is a mental health issue that is rarely considered in the design process which compromises attempts at social justice. Following this the paper will then move on to explore aspects of dignity through real life examples of spaces relevant to an individuals mental health, from clinical settings such as CAMHS services through to social infrastructure such as foodbanks. The paper will conclude with practical suggestions for how we can bring dignity and justice into the design process and will present a set of dignity by design principles.

Designed by Scott Tallon Walker Architects in association with Medical Architecture and opened in 2022, The National Forensic Mental Health Hospital in County Dublin, represented a once-in-a-generation step-change in the design of facilities for mental health services in Ireland.

Located on a 10-hectare woodland site, the 25,000m² campus replaced the existing Central Mental Hospital in Dundrum, and accommodates 170 high, medium, and low secure mental health beds. The accommodation is laid out as a series of single storey pavilion buildings around a pedestrianised ‘village green’ which contains peaceful gardens for patient amenity and therapeutic activities. Intuitive wayfinding is achieved through a site-wide narrative of colour, art, and landscaping.

The project brief and subsequent design were heavily focused around providing a safe, secure and healing environment that contributes to a patient’s recovery. This included:

• Strategic masterplanning and arrangement of accommodation to optimise the existing topology, mature woodland setting and long coastal views.
• Adopting a set of very clear planning principles to manage safety and security, while providing freedom of movement for patients
• Addressing the competing requirements of observation with the quality of space, daylight and views
• Creating high quality internal environments that will endure
• High quality landscaping and space for activity to create community, and a meaningful day for patients
• Accommodating differing services and future adaptability through standardisation of design.

In 2023, the building won International New Build Project of the Year and the Outside Space of the Year, at the DIMH Awards. The facility was hailed for setting a new standard in mental health facility design in Ireland. The presentation will look at evidence gathered during the building’s first three years of operation, and lessons that can be learnt to inform future developments of its kind.

Children and adolescents requiring psychiatric intensive care represent one of the most complex and least understood groups within mental health services. Despite increasing clinical demand and acuity, there remains no comprehensive national picture of how these services are structured, designed, or experienced.

This presentation briefly introduces the National Association of Psychiatric Intensive Care Units (NAPICU) and its role in advancing standards and knowledge across intensive mental health settings. It then presents the “Landscape Study,” a collaborative research project with the University of Salford, aimed at systematically mapping children and adolescent psychiatric intensive care provision across the UK.

The session will outline the study’s design, methodology, and the development of a national questionnaire, with a focus on how service design, environment, and care models intersect. Attendees will gain early insight into an emerging evidence base intended to inform future service development, policy, and design innovation in this critically important area.

This session will present the co-development journey of a ground-breaking non-visual patient safety aid designed specifically for use in psychiatric intensive care and other mental health settings and secure children care settings. Developed through close collaboration with NHS mental health trusts, clinical teams, service users, and industry partners, this solution addresses a critical unmet need: enhancing patient safety in low-stimulation environments where visual alerts may be unsuitable or inaccessible.
The project was guided from inception to implementation by the NHS Digital Health Technologies Assessment Criteria (DTAC), ensuring clinical efficacy, patient-centred design, interoperability, data protection, and rigorous evidence standards.
Attendees will gain insight into how these criteria were operationalised throughout the project—from early-stage needs assessment and stakeholder engagement through to prototyping, pilot deployment, and real-world evaluation.
The session will explore:
● The unique challenges of designing safety solutions in Secure Children’s Settings & mental health wards.

● How inclusive design and co-production methodologies led to a practical, human-centred innovation.

● Lessons learned from working across institutional boundaries to align safety, usability, and digital compliance.

● Early feedback and impact data from pilot sites.

This presentation will be valuable for clinical leaders, quality and safety specialists, digital health innovators, and policymakers interested in practical, scalable models of digital co-development in complex care settings.

Stakeholder engagement in architectural projects is often treated as a tick-box consultation exercise rather than a designed process. The result can be unrepresentative input, avoidable design risk, and missed opportunities to improve wellbeing outcomes. This session sets out a practical, repeatable approach for designers and project teams to plan and deliver engagement that is genuinely inclusive, including people with different processing, communication and comprehension needs. We will place particular emphasis on neurodiversity and non-visible disabilities within mental health and dementia environments.
Drawing on our inclusive design consultancy and neurodiversity advocacy across multiple typologies, our approach has been refined through dementia ward refurbishments, mental health urgent care and wider healthcare settings, and informed by methods tested in SEN education. We will share how to build engagement strategies that are proportionate, planned and responsive to project stage, including how to identify and involve the right people such as staff, carers, service users and those with lived experience. We will cover practical barriers and solutions, including accessible venues, predictable scheduling, and information shared in advance with format options such as large print, simplified summaries and alternative languages where appropriate.
We will demonstrate how to present design options in ways that reduce cognitive load and support meaningful decision-making, using multiple media types such as tactile material moodboards, photographs, and live-scale or in-situ samples and mock-ups. We will also discuss digital tools such as VR, and how to use them responsibly with equivalent alternatives for those with vestibular sensitivities or sensory processing differences.
Importantly, we move beyond standard feedback forms to show inclusive ways of capturing insight. Some people living with dementia or distress may struggle to verbalise preferences, yet can still participate through supported choice, interaction with materials, and observation-based techniques. We will share how we adapt formats, including facilitated discussion, written feedback, structured prompts, interactive workshops and simple quizzes, so engagement is not limited to those most confident in formal settings.
The session concludes with practical ways to evidence co-production and impact, including documenting how input shaped decisions, feeding back outcomes to stakeholders, and producing clear “you said, we did” summaries.

Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust is developing The Kingfisher: a pioneering combined community and inpatient service tailored for people with learning disabilities and/or autism (LDA) who require acute inpatient treatment for mental health conditions.

This presentation will explore both the architectural design of the building and the development of the associated clinical model.

Providing effective support for people with LDA experiencing acute mental distress remains a significant challenge. Historically, general adult acute admission wards and psychiatric intensive care units have provided care despite not being designed to meet LDA-specific needs—often resulting in poor experiences and iatrogenic harm. While recent initiatives have aimed to offer community-based alternatives, many admissions are still prolonged and occur far from home.

The design of The Kingfisher has been led by a clinical reference group, including experts by lived experience, ensuring that the unit reflects the needs and values of those it serves.

Key Design Features Include:
• Energy Efficiency – BREEAM rated ‘Excellent’ and Carbon Net Zero
• Enhanced Bedrooms – Each with lounge, study, and dining space
• Private Gardens – Individual outdoor space for every bedroom
• Inclusive Facilities – Bariatric, accessible, and single-sex provision
• Activity Spaces – Dedicated areas for arts, crafts, domestic tasks, and exercise
• Biophilic Design – Natural artwork and living plants visible throughout
• Trauma-Informed Design
• Autism-Friendly Environments

The final building will feature art installations created by the charity Hospital Rooms, whose artists have collaborated with experts by lived experience to produce a unique and therapeutic visual environment.

The presentation will include:
• Architectural plans and visual materials
• Reference to relevant standards and evidence base
• First-hand accounts from project leaders and experts by experience

We will conclude with time for audience questions and discussion.

Central London Samaritans (CLS) is the founding branch of the charity, dedicated to providing 24/7 emotional support to anyone in distress or at risk of suicide. Murphy Philipps Architects were commissioned to design and remodel their new head office at 13 Salisbury Place, transforming a vacant office building into a warm, inclusive, and purpose-built environment that supports both volunteers and visitors.

Our presentation for Central London Samaritans will explore the transformative power of carefully considered environments in supporting the emotionally intense work carried out by staff and volunteers. As the lifeline for individuals in crisis, Samaritans’ teams engage daily in conversations that are often not only challenging but profoundly impactful, offering guidance and hope to those struggling to continue living and facing suicidal thoughts.

Drawing on our extensive experience designing specialised workspaces for call-takers at South Central Ambulance Service, we understand emotional toll such work can take and the necessity of spaces that allow staff and volunteers to decompress, reflect, and recharge after handling stressful, life-or-death calls.

Dean and Lucy will discuss how patient safety incidents can be linked to building/environment design: sensory triggers (noise, smells), poor ventilation, lack of fresh air and inaccessible facilities can all escalate distress and risk. The conference attendees will be asked whether they recognise these links to building design, and invited to share ideas: where do design decisions have the greatest impact on patient safety? Where is more attention needed? Patient Safety Partners may be able support with defining what 'good' design is to enhance patient safety — moving beyond containment toward compassionate, therapeutic definitions of safety, and centring lived experience in design decisions.

This presentation explores the impact of acoustic conditions on comfort in school dining halls, with a focus on inclusive design for children with sensory needs. While classroom acoustics is well-researched, dining halls are under researched, despite their importance as social and multi-use learning spaces and the importance of good acoustic design for inclusion, emotional regulation and psychological safety.

The study involved acoustic measurements and surveys across five schools, engaging over 300 students and over 9,500 teachers via an online survey. Students reported on perceived loudness, annoyance, conversational ease, and emotional responses. Results showed a strong correlation between shorter reverberation times and more positive experiences, including less annoyance due to noise, and increased ability to enjoy their lunch.

The research also explored the impact of acoustic capacity as well as controlling low frequency reverberation time. Based on student feedback, the study recommends revising BB93 standards to a lower reverberation time range of 0.5–0.8 seconds for dining halls (depending on room volume), to better support inclusive listening environments and improve outcomes for children with sensory needs. The criteria are achievable in practice with good acoustic design.

This research demonstrates the value of co-production in acoustic design and advocates for evidence-based standards that reflect the lived experience of students. It contributes to the growing conversation around designing educational spaces that promote wellbeing, inclusion, psychological safety and equitable access to communication.

Prisons are living environments which accommodate people with high levels of vulnerability, trauma and mental ill-health - yet they lack the design standards found in healthcare settings. This session shares learning from Fatal Accident Inquiries into deaths in custody and how they will shape a wellbeing‑led approach to safer prison environments. We will explore the challenge of reducing suicide risk while preserving dignity, autonomy and connection in spaces that people live in for months or years. Drawing on multidisciplinary design work, pilot activity and lived experience, this session invites collaboration to help define what safe, humane and realistic prison design could look like.

What’s happening in mental health policy? We’re in a period of significant change in health policy, with more changes to strategy, direction and system architecture than we’ve seen in years. Every element of change, from the abolition of NHS England, the development of neighbourhood as a core component of healthcare delivery and the consideration of new payment mechanisms has a direct impact in mental health services, but mental health is less prominent in national policy and political discussion than it has been for some time.

What are the implications of current policy thinking for mental health services and improving community mental health support? How can innovative, person-centred design fit into government ambitions for a left shift in health services, care closer to home and a more digitally enabled mental health system?

Is the ‘tyranny of the pretty’ in danger of shifting our focus away from achieving value and measurable health outcomes in healthcare design?

‘Biophilic’ design is an architectural concept that aims to integrate natural elements and systems into the built environment to strengthen human connection with nature.

We believe that there is growing evidence that the notion of ‘Biophilic’ design, particularly as commonly applied to healthcare settings, is in danger of being oversimplistic. Healthcare environments are complex and highly dynamic. The pressures that are applied can rapidly change and this demands that the environment is highly adaptable and responsive to the needs of staff, patients and budgets!

Our focus should not be purely on the presence of ‘nature’ but on the truly functional. The aspiration should be to achieve measurable and sustainable healthcare outcomes.

This presentation will use the multiple award-winning ‘Meadow Green Outdoor Dementia Ward’ at the Princess of Wales Hospital in Bromsgrove as its basis. Building on this, we will offer insights into a developed approach that moves beyond the ‘Biophilic’.

This approach we have come to term ‘ALIVE’. ALIVE stands for Ambition, Lexicon, Individual, Value and Effectiveness, which we will explain. We’ll be supported by Mike Taylor, Capital Programme Manager for the Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust.

We have worked with Mike and colleagues at the Trust for the last twenty years. The presentation will illustrate and evidence some of the findings from this relationship and will point to improvements in the philosophy of design of the external environment in healthcare settings.

From Arcadis's experience of working in the mental health sector over the past 25 years, our team have engaged with staff, service users and stakeholders with lived experience, extensively, within every project we have worked on together, as an integral part of the design team.

We are applying this collective experience to this workshop, which forms the basis of 'Enhancing the mental health patient journey'.

We encourage a wide range of participants, from lived experience to the NHS in order to get the most from this workshop.

The SouthWest London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust commissioned new hospital buildings, Trinity and Shaftesbury, which opened in December 2022 and September 2023 respectively. Since opening, the new hospital buildings have been singled-out for national and international acclaim & awards. They are the centrepiece of an Estates Modernisation Programme focused on the de-stigmatization and integration of mental healthcare facilities within a large-scale development that now includes 1,200 new homes, a new 32-acre public park, retail shops and community spaces created on surplus NHS land.
Co-designed with staff, patients, carers and service users, the aim was to create therapeutic and dignified surroundings for staff and service-users using open courtyards, planted gardens, ample daylight, fresh air, safe layouts, artworks and careful attention to acoustics. The hospital’s purpose was to replace Victorian facilities with high quality inpatient and outpatient services, giving patients a chance to recover in an environment that supports the care they deserve.
The initial post-occupancy data shows serious incidents have been reduced by over 36% - an exceptional and noteworthy benefit. Energy use in the new facility is 17% below projected values.

But has the facility made working or staying in a mental health facility better? And, if so, how?

The presentation will look at how hospital spaces have been adapted after hand-over to address practical concerns about maintenance, control and security. It will look at specific features of the new hospital that are valued (or not) by service-users, clinical staff and management. Lastly the talk will examine how can designers, product manufacturers and stakeholders can uphold and deliver the vision of better, safer and therapeutic mental healthcare facilities.

We’ll discuss the process of co-design with a Young Adult Council (YAC) who shared their lived experience to inform every aspect of the project from the programming through to the delivery of a completely reimagined historic warehouse space in the Queen West neighbourhood. Stella’s provides peer support for ages 16 to 29; a cohort that is often faced with challenges accessing mental health services for their unique needs, particularly as they transition from child/youth services to adult care under an entirely different provincial ministry. Stella’s was inspired through the experiences of one family as they sought ongoing support for a young adult post inpatient care. Realizing that many young adults were facing the same gap and often abandoning therapy, they sought to create effective programming with the YAC, researchers and clinical advisors that allows participants to seek out their peers in a setting that is the very opposite of ‘clinical,’ close to where they live, work and attend school all without any cost.

Over a 10-month planning, design and fast track construction process, we had dozens of workshop and meeting with front line peer support staff for a facility of 150 full time employees at Dauphin Crisis Center. The youth and adult observation units, staffed with both young people with lived experience as well as adults, were essential to crafting the experience of the space. From the welcoming but separate youth and adult behavioral health urgent care entrances to the observation lounge design, peer support drove design.

At the Aqqusariaq Nunavut Recovery Centre, Inuit in Nunavut seeking to address generational trauma and care in their community have developed a one-of-a-kind model of family inpatient care lead by a Cultural and Lived Experience Advisory Council (CLEAC). The programming and design was shaped with the purpose of reconnecting a community through culturally-contextual healing in a “Made in Nunavut” model of care.

The presentation will focus on how we have started a complex journey in realising a shared vision and ambitious plans driven by a unique collaboration between an NHS Foundation Trust, the oldest university in the English-speaking work, and a philanthropist.
This presentation will follow on from “Engaging the Vision for the New Warneford Park”, the presentation we gave in 2024 - Outlining the vision to create an outstanding environment for healthcare, research, innovation, and education, achieved with true co production.
This year we will update our journey and describe how we hope to create a new sustainably designed mental health hospital, offering the best therapies, care, and a therapeutic environment that provides the best opportunity for recovery, co-located with global brain health research facilities and reuse the existing Late Georgian, Warneford Hospital building to provide a new post-graduate college that educates future generations of clinicians and researchers.
In 2026 we will celebrate 200 years of continual clinical use of the existing Warneford Hospital, we reflect on the lessons of the past that are helping us ensure that the New Warneford Park can continue to adapt and support care into the next 200 years.
From legacy to innovation the importance of nature enhancing design and the importance of meaningful co production throughout our design process.

This presentation explores the second phase of a sustained collaboration between the University of Lincoln and NHS Lincolnshire Partnership Foundation Trust (LPFT), led by Associate Professors Dr Steve Fossey and Rachel Baynton. The partnership brings together NHS staff, service users with lived experience, and students through a co-production model that integrates artistic practice with mental health research.

The first phase focused on mindfulness, recovery, and sensory experience, producing two large-scale artworks for the Peter Hodgkinson Acute Mental Health Centre that support grounding and de-escalation. The project was shortlisted for the 2024 Design in Mental Health Awards (‘Art Installation of the Year’) and informed the creation of an immersive 3D Matterport model that enhances understanding and accessibility of therapeutic environments.

Phase Two, now complete, expands this research into the field of de-escalation through art and visual design. As Consultant Artists-in-Residence for the new Boston Norton Lea mental health ward, Fossey and Baynton developed three permanent, co-produced artworks designed specifically to support emotional regulation and recovery. This phase drew on emerging evidence from trauma-informed care, sensory integration, and environmental psychology, combining academic inquiry with collaboration from Experts by Experience and clinical practitioners. Working closely with occupational therapists and patients, the artists investigated how, colour, form, imagery and text can function as active tools for calming, orientation, and de-escalation within clinical spaces.

For the Design in Mental Health Conference, Dr Steve Fossey and will present his and Baynton’s new findings from this phase, demonstrating how sustained co-creation and evidence-led visual design can contribute to safer, more restorative mental health environments.