Another lengthy weekend with huge caffeine and doughnut intake saw the final areas of the children’s in patients and out patients at The Royal Marsden in Surrey completed, the patients, parents and staff love their new decorations 🙂 These images were taken during the works, professional ones may come later.

I have been asked to provide an evaluation of the Usborne images in the consultant clinic rooms and clinical procedure room In general, the images are colourful and interactive. The clinical procedure room displays the monster hospital theme, which the children love. When certain procedures are performed, it provides a good distraction tool as some of the patients can become quite distressed. The size and variety within the each image allows the children and families to become lost in the image and therefore appears to help reduce the level of anxiety in the room. During a family clinic appointment some children can become agitated by the lack of attention from the parents therefore to aid a calm, smooth clinic consultation staff utilise the images to create an environment where the parents can concentrate on the information being discussed. This is vital when communicating “bad news” A lot of the families recognise the images from the books and therefore are instantly engaged. Encouraging comments have been received from the families.

Carly Snowball – Royal Marsden HospitalÂ