In 2008 and 2009 Addenbrooke’s redeveloped its bereavement facilities – creating new rooms for relatives to meet staff and register deaths, and a creating a contained, private waiting area just alongside the busy foyer entry. The relatives room on A&E was also redesigned as part of the project.
The aim was to create beautiful, non-clinical and yet functional and practical spaces, with artwork commissioned from local Cambridgeshire artists. The intention was to transform previously seemingly small and dingy rooms into spaces that established a supporting sense of calm and ease in times of difficulty and great distress.
 
The project was given financial backing and support from the Enhancing the Healing Environment programme run by the Kings Fund.More recently, in the summer of 2012, I worked with Addenbrooke’s Arts co-ordinator, Damian Hebron to help furnish the counselling room in the new Rosie Maternity Hospital – using similar principles of establishing non-clinical, beautiful spaces that had more of an art gallery feel than the traditional hospital room. Again, art work was sourced from local Cambridgeshire artists, and largely work that was inspired by the changing seasons and the natural world.