Working with Black Country Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
The new unit at Dorothy Pattison Hospital is a caring environment for Older Adults created on a complex site over a former reservoir.
Client
Black Country Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
Location
Walsall
Value
£27,000,000
THE PROJECT
Pioneering as one of the first of the national eradicating dormitories projects, Dorothy Pattison Older Adult Unit provides two wards – Linden Ward as a specialist dementia ward, and Cedars Ward as a mixed-sex functional older adult ward.
The new unit replaces existing wards at Bloxwich Hospital which had dormitory accommodation, high maintenance costs and limitations on occupation due to the restrictive nature of the historic parts of the building.
OUR APPROACH
With maximum flexibility in mind, and a clinical need to incorporate wander loops, the two wards are looping in format and are joined by a gently curving shared therapies area.
WHAT WE DID
Each ward has been purpose designed with care and thought in collaboration with Black Country Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and its stakeholders. The clinical brief requested wander loops for each ward, so each one is set out to provide looping pathways internally and externally.
THE IMPACT
The bedrooms are nestled in clusters of 2 in the Dementia Ward and clusters of 3 in the Functional Ward. Each cluster of bedrooms has at least 1 associated informal wider corridor space with seating and a view overlooking a garden space.
These informal spaces are provided for patients to sit and talk to staff. These locations will also be used by nursing staff, whilst observing patients during the day or night. The bedrooms have control doors to provide flexibility in the gender split of the ward.
