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Welcome to the Zest website
Zest, based in the Site Services Department of Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust, is working to improve healthcare environments across Plymouth.
We work on the design of new and refurbished healthcare buildings as well as projects within the day to day provision of healthcare. The aim with all of our work is to transform the healthcare experience, at key moments in people's lives, into a positive one.
Why do we need to improve the healthcare environment?
Nearly nine out of ten people say that better quality buildings and public spaces improve their quality of life, according to new MORI research published by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) September 2009.
We all know that a good environment makes us feel better, and feeling better is the key to getting better. Research and anecdotal evidence increasingly shows that a well presented healthcare environment designed with reference to natural landscapes has a positive effect on patients improving recovery times and making everyone feel better. In a perfect world clinical areas would have beautiful views of the outdoors, where this is not possible large scale images of real views have an almost equal beneficial effect.
We all perceive our environment through our five senses: sight, smell, touch, taste and hearing. This sensory information is relayed to the brain and affects our physiological, emotional, psychological and, ultimately, physical well being. An understanding of the sensory impact our surroundings have on all of us contributes to the creation of a well designed healthcare environment.
As well as the impact of the senses on design studies clearly show that a whole range of environmental factors - including lighting, colour, aroma, views, art, scale, proportion, sound, texture and materials - also have a powerful effect on patients. Understanding these factors is the key to good design - it allows designers to work with greater skill creating truly positive healthcare environments. Good healthcare environments lead to:
- faster patient recoveries
- reduced pain
- fewer cases of infection
- greater patient satisfaction
- reduced stress levels among staff
- easier recruitment and retention of quality staff
“The arts certainly have a key role to play in healthcare - its therapeutic value cannot be underestimated. But this isn’t a matter of hanging a few expensive paintings in a badly-lit hospital corridor, or replacing surgery with sculpture classes. It’s well-documented that those hospitals and other care settings that pay close attention to the overall physical environment for patients achieve real improvements in the health of patients.”
Alan Johnson, Secretary of State for Health, September 2008
