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 newVelindre 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.”
