The healthy approach

Human factors thinking is helping to put clinical teams at the heart of plans for a new hospital.

The UK Government has committed £3.7 billion to building 40 new hospitals by 2030 and the ergonomics of wards and other spaces can have a significant impact of patients and staff.

Teams at West Suffolk Hospital NHS Foundation Trust have long embraced the benefits of human factors and were keen to engage specialists in the planning of their new facility.

Sue Deakin is a Trustee at the Clinical Human Factors Group, and they have a well-developed faculty led by David Higgins. They worked with Morgan Human Systems Ltd to look at some of the areas that are sometimes the most challenging to design, such as the emergency department and operating departments.

Dr Lauren Morgan, founder of Morgan Human Systems, said: “This project shows the importance of clinical engagement in human factors and how knowledge and enthusiasm for the subject has enabled more resource to bring the full benefits if its inclusion in the new hospital programme.

“The beauty of human factors in these projects is that we have a breadth of methodologies to shine a light on different areas, question assumptions and, above all, centre the user experience.”

Find out more about Lauren’s experience and the difference she was able to make in the full article in the latest issue of The Ergonomist, out now.