Step Exhibitions
Meadow Green Dementia Ward: The Staff who Led to its Success and the Service Users Behind the Inspiration
Nominee Information
Meadow Green has had a tremendously positive impact on patients like Lily (not her real name)!
Lily is a resident with vascular dementia at the New Haven Unit, Princess of Wales Hospital in Bromsgrove. The ward’s staff would observe Lily pacing up and down, a problem common to dementia wards. Lily’s mood would deteriorate further, often shouting and crying at the staff desk.
Staff found that the inability for dementia patients to get outside was causing considerable frustration, agitation and distress. The indoor ward environment was becoming a significant trigger for patients, and a significant strain on staff morale. The staff would have little choice but to gently encourage Lily back to her chair. Opportunities for greater freedom in going outside were limited.
Meadow Green now provides somewhere meaningful to visit the Teapot Café being one example setup. It importantly allows all staff to engage Lily in purposeful activity giving her and the staff somewhere to go, and something to do.
Dementia Care Mapping shows that once in the café, Lily’s wellbeing increases dramatically, going from a score of -5 to 5, and rises even further as she reminisces. The environment provides visual prompts that she is indeed in a café, with the smell of coffee and taste of cake reinforcing this sensory experience. Most importantly the experience is very real! Lily now returns to the ward relaxed and happy. Lily’s positive experiences are now typical of all patients on the ward with Dementia Care Mapping evidencing that incidents of challenging behaviour on the ward have dropped sharply.
Meadow Green is just as important for the wellbeing of the staff. Staff now have an easier and more reliable way of helping patients. They also have their own convenient space to gather, eat and unwind. The happiness and wellbeing of everyone in the ward has greatly improved because of the ambition of the client team to create Meadow Green.
DSA worked with Mike Taylor (Capital Programme Manager for Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust) and ward staff to fully understand their ideas in a successful bid to achieve the funding. The team took inspiration from world-leading practice in the Netherlands to think holistically about a new outdoor ward environment that recreates the everyday environment.
This project is special because it was retrofitted to an existing NHS hospital, installed to a budget and NHS clinical constraints. This success comes from the leadership and enthusiasm that Clare McFadyen, Occupational Therapist and Sarah Taylor, Ward Manager, have shown in setting the vision for Meadow Green. They led its successful delivery through the build and critically, have integrated Meadow Green into staff working and patients treatment plans. Clare and Sarah empowered staff to choose the name Meadow Green as well.
The project won “Best Outdoor Space” at the Design in Mental Health Awards in 2024. We believe the client team, primarily consisting of Sarah and Clare, deserve greater recognition in achieving something so fantastic!
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