This garden project was designed as a result of a dying patient's request to go out into one of the courtyard gardens of the hospital.
This highlighted the need for a space exclusively designed for patients receiving palliative care along with their families and friends in order to provide them with an alternative environment to busy clinical ward areas.
The courtyard walls have been painted to complement the rows of trees while planting has been chosen to add interest throughout the year and to screen more private areas so that more than one family can use the garden at any one time. A variety of artworks have been provided by local students.
The pavilion provides shelter for all weathers and has specifically been designed to accommodate beds and wheelchairs.
Palliative care patients can have 24hr access to the garden - entry being controlled via a swipe card system.
This project won the Building Better Healthcare Award for Best Landscape in 2011.
Launched by HRH The Prince of Wales, President of The King's Fund, the award winning Enhancing the Healing Environment (EHE) programme worked with over 250 teams from hospitals and hospices between 2000 and 2014. The programme has shown how it is possible to transform the patient experience through improvements to the physical environment of care and that the benefits are enormous. Improved environments can transform the patient experience, humanise care, reduce accidents and incidents, and increase staff morale
