ILLUMINATING MENTAL HEALTHCARE

Whitecroft Lighting, a commercial lighting manufacturer that has specialised in healthcare for 40 years, was chosen by global construction business Multiplex to upgrade the lighting in Peterborough City Hospital Edith Cavell Campus for North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust. Here, Karen Bramman, Healthcare Sales Director at Whitecroft Lighting, who has managed over 70 projects for specialist mental health facilities, describes mental health as one of the most nuanced and complex healthcare environments.

Lighting mental health facilities is both a challenge and opportunity for Whitecroft Lighting. A challenge because of the wide range of specialist needs required by service users and staff, but also an opportunity because of the significant contribution that lighting can make to treatment and recovery.

Specialist knowledge

The challenges are influenced by several factors: some specific to the needs of mental health service users and staff, some technology related and others more pervasive to wider healthcare and industries – such as the rising cost of energy and the drive for net zero.

In 2020, the NHS pledged to become net-zero carbon by 2040 and launched a Green Plan outlining its expectations for carbon reduction and energy operational efficiency.

There is a particular focus on reducing scope one and two emissions across its entire estate by making sure companies across the supply chain embed sustainable practices into their plans and approach when considering new-build, retrofit or just small area upgrades.

There is also an increasing focus on the whole-life carbon impact of building materials, which includes embodied carbon – the emissions generated from the sourcing, manufacturing and transportation of products.

This, of course, includes emissions linked to lighting, mechanical and electrical (M&E), and something that is driving Whitecroft Lighting to reimagine its products.

All change in health and mental health

At Peterborough’s Mental Health Unit, I see the culmination of two decades of clinical research and feedback – plus the knowledge and innovation accumulated from over 70 Whitecroft mental health lighting projects across the UK.

Primarily, the health, safety and wellbeing of those who occupy, work in and visit facilities must be a priority, and lighting has its own special role to play in achieving this.

For service users, this can mean considering a broad range of conditions and associated symptoms, and then factoring in how they will shape a person’s environment.

While a portion of service users might be resident for just a few days, others may stay for months or years, so lighting must contribute to people feeling comfortable and at home, rather than just passing through a clinical environment.

This means lighting can often have a more domestic feel than in other healthcare or hospital settings, with a more homely aesthetic and warmer colour temperature.

However, although the lighting may look warm and cosy, the level of design and specification must go far beyond what you would find in the home.

Specialist expertise

Specialist light fittings must be durable enough to withstand significant and prolonged abuse, to the extent where Whitecroft will test the resilience of products with a variety of structured physical trials that includes repeated hard impacts for up to three hours.

Hardware must also be secure from tampering. At Peterborough, we installed our Horizon AntiLigature product, specifically designed for mental health in-patient applications.

The main luminaire body has an ‘anti-pick’ mastic seal to prevent any unwanted intrusion to the internal mechanism, while the robust construction and tamperproof fixing screws ensure protection from harm to any service user.

Whitecroft has a long history with Peterborough, having supplied florescent luminaires to the new hospital, including the Mental Health and Integrated Care Centre in 2009.

This latest project, as part of the unit’s natural life-cycling process, included upgrading the emergency lighting systems and completing the centre’s conversion to low-energy LED lighting.

Because we knew the space, the site and the lighting systems, we were, again, able to work with the existing infrastructure to quickly deliver LED lighting and integrating it into existing components.

We used the existing luminaire body and provided a replacement gear tray and diffuser, so the client did not have to compromise, and did so without disrupting the specialist ceiling or the service users’ bedrooms.

This created less waste by reducing the need to use new products and materials while harnessing the latest technology.

To hit its net-zero objectives, it is essential that the NHS replaces its conventional lighting with LED technology, and at Peterborough this has cut energy consumption by half.

But carbon emissions were lowered further in other ways. For example, undertaking the product conversions on site, as opposed to at the factory, reduced transportation by 50%, while using existing materials meant 35% less waste went to landfill or recycling.

Phased approach

At Peterborough, our brief was to upgrade the lighting in 200 plus rooms, but this could not all be undertaken simultaneously as it would be too disruptive for in-patients to congregate in breakout spaces. We had to devise a phased approach. www.whitecroftlighting.com

Working with the facilities management team, we did a trial install in a small number of rooms and used this as a guide as to the time and resources required to complete the unit in batches of two to three rooms.

This allowed the staff to support a small number of service users at a time. When they returned to their rooms, the environment was complete and visually unchanged, a key factor for those that find obvious disruption to their space unsettling and disturbing, which we must avoid at all costs.

We also had to include other factors in the design specification. For example, some service users receiving support for conditions such as paranoid schizophrenia can feel threatened by LED emergency on-lights, which can be interpreted as cameras or recording devices, so this must be designed carefully in lighting products.

Whitecroft can also custom design lighting controls, and mental health service users can benefit from subtle changes to the way that lighting is turned off and on. Sudden changes from dark to full brightness and vice versa can be startling, so lighting can be programmed to fade up and down gradually, giving people time to adjust and provide a higher level of additional safety.