Warrington Hospital Dementia Ward
The state-of-the-art £1 million Forget Me Not project at the Warrington Hospital created a dedicated ward for dementia patients. The design, based on the principles developed from years of research into the use of art, colour and light in dementia care design, aims to provide calm, relaxing and non-institutional surroundings for improved patient outcomes.
Construction Specialties’ Acrovyn® Wall Protection range was selected to provide a vital element of impact protection, to facilitate delivery of essential clinical care for patients in a robust and easy to maintain environment, without taking away from the homely feel of the space.
Lee Bushell, Building Surveyor, Estates Capital Projects for the hospital said: “The wall protection aspects on this project were really important as we wanted to not only offer protection to the walls from beds, trolleys and equipment, but also to provide a handrail solution for patients who are likely to be unsteady on their feet.
“As part of our design, we selected different colours of wall protection for inside the ward, as well as the corridor to the dementia ward and adjacent stroke ward. We wanted to make the corridor look warm and inviting, as well as modern and of a hotel type standard.”
An HRB20 hand/crash rail system from the Acrovyn® range was specified for the project, as its two part cover design offers the opportunity to mix colours in order to create visual contrast between handrail and crashrail elements and/or walls.
In this case, the upper handrail cover was supplied in a wood effect finish, to create a warm and inviting feel in the corridor leading to the dementia ward. The lower crashrail cover was supplied in Charcoal colour, to match door frames and complement feature walls.
Inside the ward, the aim was to make the handrail a stand out feature for patients. Charcoal colour was used for that purpose, as it provides a good visual contrast with the creamy colour of the walls, while the French Cream coloured crashrail covers blend in with the surrounding wall.
HRB-20 hand/crash rails were fixed not only to walls, but continued across some of the ward doors, making them blend in more successfully and discourage patients from exploring behind them.
To complete the wall protection scheme, heavy duty SCR-50 crash rails in matching colours were used on lower parts of the walls, whilst SM-20 corner guards were installed on all corners, to protect them from impact from trolleys and other equipment. In addition, Acrovyn Sheet applied to half wall height in seating areas offers effective and aesthetically pleasing surface protection solution.
Asked for reasons behind specifying Acrovyn wall protection Lee Bushell commented: “We have used CS products before and know from experience that they are robust, of good quality and would meet the needs we had for this scheme. The fact that you can mix and match the colours of the wall protection, the hand rails and top rail, corner protection, wall panels, etc. makes the design aspect easy.
“CS have a history of delivering on time and being cost effective and competitively priced.”
