Entrance: Square
The entrance of a hospital could be like a town square, the heart of a hospital. A 24 hour public place, where you can do normal everyday things: wait, meet a doctor, eat, drink, shop, get information, read, people-watch, look at art, access the internet, be entertained and distracted from worry.

Nearby you will also find intimately designed private places where you can be examined by a doctor, cry, pray, meditate, rest, yell, have a massage, get advice…do things that help you cope.

The (No) Waiting Room
Waiting is our overriding hospital experience and the one we complain about most. It is highly stressful to wait in a room with lots of other anxious people, bored, uncomfortable, desperate for information and attention. Technology will give us greater freedom of movement and will do away with conventional waiting rooms. This is not sci-fi; this ‘future’ is available now, using mobile phones or ‘smart’ wrist-bands. And a more efficient service for patients already at home with technology will allow staff to help thosepatients not yet technology-literate.

Bedroom
Why can’t our hospital rooms be more like our home? They would be just as efficient and clean but, if rooms felt more domestic in scale, with high quality natural materials, we would relax more. We need to feel normal, comfortable, safe and well looked-after.

Garden
Every hospital should have several well designed and maintained external green spaces. The natural environment is vital to our sense of well being, it makes us feel good, calms us down, restores us. Patient, visitor, nurse, doctor, administrator or support staff, we all benefit from the opportunity to breathe some fresh air, go for a walk, collect our thoughts. We love plants, so why not a ‘physic’ garden with explanations about plants that heal and gardening areas for staff and long-term patients? Why not use the produce? An apple a day keeps the doctor away…