Healing Architecture: For a long time, we have supposed that good design will improve patient well-being. Now we have figures to prove it. Bryan Lawson reports on how patient treatment and behaviour improved with new architecture - Theory

Architectural Review, The, March, 2002 by Bryan Lawson

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(1.) Nightingale, I (1860), Notes on Nursing, London, Harrison and Sons.

(2.) The project funded by NHS states at the University of Sheffield was directed by Bryan Lawson, an architect and psychologist, chaired by John-Wells Thorpe, both an architect and an NHS Trust chairman. South Downs Health NHS Trust and Poole Hospital NHS Trust collaborated.

(3.) For more details of the research methods used see Lawson B.R. and M. Phiri (2000). 'Room for improvement', Health Service Journal 110(5688 20:1:2000):24-27.

(4.) Samples sizes were approximately 40 in Poole General Hospital where patients typically stayed for nine or 10 days, and about 75 in the Brighton Mental Health units where patients typically stayed rather longer for about 35-40 days.

(5.) At Poole Hospital 72 percent of the patients in the new unit gave the highest rating they could for overall appearance compared with only 37 percent of the patients in the old unit. At South Down, these figures were both lower with 41 percent giving the highest rating in the new unit compared with only 20 percent in the old. Generally lower satisfaction figures in the case of mental health patients is expected.

(6.) On the newer wards the average number of days on which Class A pain-killing drugs were administered was reduced by 22 percent and the number of doses applied on these days of Class B drugs taken on the newer wards.

(7.) For a fuller discussion of this see Lawson,B.( 2001). The language of Space, Oxford, Architectural Press.

(8.) Ulrich R.S. (1984). 'View through a window may influence recovery from surgery', Science 224:420-421.

(9.) A further study was done at Poole Hospital involving a sample of 473 patients on this particular question.

(10.) Sadly, some 22 percent of our patients were moved during their stay not for their own good but as a result of need to accommodate others. Such moves were frequently at very short notice and often at night.

(11.) In a separate study for NHS Estates we showed that although senior health service managers and patients agreed about the importance of this issues, those responsible for briefing architects did not share this view but rather laid emphasis on more technnical matters.