We recently completed the refurbishment of the outpatient waiting area at Bristol Heart Institute, which provides a specialist service for cardiac patients across Bristol and the South West. We were asked to create a space that was welcoming for young patients who were, for the first time, attending appointments in an adult ward.
The project was brought to life in collaboration with Youth at Heart– a charity which supports young people between the ages of 13 and 24 living with congenital heart disease – Bristol and Weston Hospitals Charity, UHBW, and the hospital’s Learning and Disabilities team. Also integral to the project were the ideas and input of some of the young people supported by Youth at Heart.
Xander Patel-Cook, Senior Congenital Heart Disease Health Youth Worker for Young at Heart, explains:
‘In Paediatrics the environment is well-suited to children and some young people, but when they move to the adult hospital it is a very sudden and drastic change to a “hospital” looking environment. White walls and limited things to look at while waiting for a clinic appointment.’
BHI is a relatively new building having been opened in 2009 and, while white walls are never something that even the most patient of us (if you’ll excuse the pun!) would want to stare at while waiting for a hospital appointment, they do provide something of a blank canvas for a designer to create an incredibly special space.
The architecture of the institute already embraces the local leafy landscape which surrounds it, and the indoor planted trees allow it to follow patients inside as they enter. Building upon this celebration of the outdoors seemed like the natural choice, especially as plenty of research, as well as our own experience, has taught us that bringing the outside in can help to lessen feelings of claustrophobia. In turn, this can ease the anxieties that patients often, understandably, feel.
And while we were tasked with creating somewhere that was less daunting for young patients who had recently transferred to adult services, it was important that we considered the existing adult users in our designs so that it continued to be an inviting space for them, too.
The newly enhanced outpatient area has been designed to create a more inviting environment for its younger users, while being considerate of patients who are neurodiverse or living with learning disabilities. These young patients can find unfamiliar clinical spaces overstimulating and, consequently, even more stressful than their neurotypical peers.
As part of the design process, Xander worked with Pauline, an ACHD psychologist, to start coming up with ideas that they could bring together to develop an inclusive, age-appropriate space, and consulted patients who Youth at Heart were working with:
‘The young people felt that having seasonal variations in the windows and some animals to find might help those with additional needs as it would break up the picture.’
We also included a tribute to a young patient called George, who Xander had worked with for several years before he sadly died in 2023:
‘G would sit in this corner while waiting for outpatient appointments, usually quite grumpy at the prospect of being at the hospital again. We had many conversations, laughs and memories here and I know he would approve of this space.’
