Design and Digital Solutions Theatre Seminars

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

From an initial CQC inspection back in 2019 to the much-anticipated opening of our new Place of Safety in 2026, this has undoubtedly been one of the longest and most challenging projects we have ever undertaken, but also one of the most rewarding.

Throughout the process, we have worked closely with our clinical colleagues, service users, and PFI partners to bring our vision of a safe and welcoming clinical environment to life for some of our most vulnerable patients. Repurposing an existing space was no easy feat, and we faced numerous constraints within the building that required creative problem-solving and collaboration.

Working closely with suppliers was crucial in ensuring that the safety features tailored to this patient group were meticulously included. We navigated around obstacles and overcame various challenges, demonstrating resilience every step of the way.

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.

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.

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.

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.