Mental Health Furniture – Bacteria the invisible threat; our solution

They say everyone in hospital touches 10 things a minute and every touch can transfer infection.

The risk of contracting infections is an extremely valid and significant concern not only for patients and visitors to hospitals, but for nurses, and all other hospital staff too.

This statement is not only true of the wards but the same can be said of communal spaces and reception waiting rooms. Highlighting the infection control battle the hospital staff are faced with daily.

A Mental Health environment should be a place of healing and recovery; not only aesthetically, non-institutional in look and feel, but also practically.

Children and adults with Mental Health issues often experience continence problems. As well as requiring sensitive nursing care, incontinence can also put additional demands upon furniture.

So how can we tackle the transmission and spread of infection from furniture?

When we say we design our furniture to provide safer spaces, we don’t only mean physically. We design it with a fixed set of criteria, hurdles that it must achieve before going into production. These criteria are in no small part driven by the issues the staff on the frontline have told us about and face, particularly anti bacterial issues.

Our Armadillo Range amplifies the criteria and exceeds what was asked of it on many fronts. Regarding infection control some of the criteria we have achieved are noted below

• Seam-free – nonporous surfaces easy to wipe down, preventing bacterial build up.
• Easy to move, allowing for cleaning in hard-to-reach areas
• Seamless surfaces, eliminating sharp and shallow corners that can prevent easy cleaning

By achieving this we aim to remove some of the burden on already overworked staff.

We continuously strive to provide both patients and staff using our Mental Health furniture the best possible experience. Designed to have a positive impact both mentally and practically.