North Middlesex Hospital

Bringing The Outside, Inside

Entering a hospital complex can be a daunting experience, and it’s something that we don’t do very often. We’re welcomed to a strange clinical environment that seems to suspend all our typical senses, putting us inside a weird sensory void, which can be quite uncomfortable, especially for children.

Roughly 3 million children visit A&E departments across the country each year. This means 3 million children are experiencing an already uncomfortable situation even more uncomfortably than they should, which was something that the staff at North Middlesex Hospital A&E Department wanted to fix.

After an impressive staff fundraising drive, the department had raised enough money to transform their A&E Department into a bright environment that children wouldn’t be as scared to visit, which is where our sensory design team got involved.

Our Design & Solution

The key to our design was to counter the clinical with a sparkle of mother nature so that each patient’s sensory experience could be nurtured by nature.

(Mr) Blue Sky:  Offering relaxing windows to the outside world and magical portals for sunny daydreams, we installed LED Sky Ceilings within the children’s waiting area and treatment cubicles. The images that the special LED Tiles would project were specially chosen by the staff, which included shady tree cover and a fun flurry of floating balloons. Perfect for bringing the outside, inside.

Sensory Treat(s)ment: We gave each treatment room a special sensory theme that would be both a visual and tactile treat. Kitting them out with Solar Projectors, LED Ceiling Tiles and interactive Activity Panels, we made each treatment space an encompassing sensory area. All of the interactive elements were specially chosen for their robust and easy to clean nature so that they could be effectively sanitised between uses.

24h Sensory: In order to cause as little disruption to the busy department, we completed the sensory transformation throughout the night. From 1 am to 7 am, our sensory installation team created the new sensory space, just in time for a celebratory breakfast butty when they were done.

An Extra Sensory Sparkle: For a complete sensory treat, we worked with other departments within the hospital to supply sensory equipment, toys and panels to make their areas more sensory-friendly.

Key Products:

• Solar LED Projector
• Whales Effect Wheel
• Butterflies Effect Wheel
• LED Sky Ceiling
• Bubble PlayTouch LED
• Crabfish Wall Toy