Design for Patient Dignity - Retractable Screen - Royal College of Art

Design for Patient Dignity - Brief 3/7
Design a product or service that effectively separates male and female patients on NHS wards, considering patient needs while also giving staff the flexibility to change areas at short notice.

A middle ground between a curtain and a wall, this screen is made from fabric sheets stretched across a plastic rib frame, which folds back concertina-style against the walls.

How it works

The Retractable Screen is fixed to either side of the ward and suspended from the ceiling. It can be pulled out, concertina-style, to create a barrier across or down the middle of the ward. The screen is secured to the floor using a foot-operated push-clamp. Its made from sections of polymer fabric stretched across a frame of plastic ribs. Because the screen has two layers of fabric, one on either side of the internal frame, with a space between them, its more substantial than a single sheet curtain, and because it is taut when pulled across it feels more like a partition or a wall.

The screens use is flexible because it can be pulled out to different lengths, and more than one screen can be used together to enable wards to be divided in a number of ways. Its lightweight enough that nursing staff can pull it out easily, and the fabric can be cleaned in situ or taken off for deep cleaning in an industrial washing machine.

The issue in context

Hospitals and other NHS sites include a huge range of building types. Ward layouts are difficult to change, especially in pre-Victorian buildings, or when structural constraints or the location of service ducts make space complex and expensive to reconfigure. And in day surgeries, where the relative numbers of male and female patients are constantly changing, its also hard to maintain privacy for all patients.


The designers insights

The design team spent a lot of time in hospitals speaking to staff and patients, and looking at the range of options already available for separating patients. We wanted something that patients perceived to be like a wall but that offered the flexibility of a curtain, and was cheap and easy to store on the ward, says Yusuf Muhammad, Research Associate at the Helen Hamlyn Centre. The team also spent time working out different ways that wards and bays could be divided to separate patients.

http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/dignity

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Nonprofits & Activism

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• Design
• Design council
• design for patient dignity
• dividing wards