Patients on the Children’s Ward at the Royal Preston Hospital know that blue skies are just a blink away!
Seven of the ward’s bays have now been fitted with LED picture ceiling panels, most of which feature cloudless summer skies that are filled with soaring kites, bobbling balloons or floating rainbow umbrellas – therapeutic designs to induce a sense of calm.
At a cost of £30,000, the panels were on a Children’s Fund wish list but construction company DD Porter, which had been working at the hospital, agreed to foot the bill and install them.
Lucy Clark, a fundraiser with Lancashire Teaching Hospital’s charity team, said: “There’s lots of documented evidence, which shows that patients of all ages, able to focus on a calming image that subtly changes, are less anxious and need less pain relief.
“We have had ceiling panels fitted in some of the treatment rooms in Children’s Outpatients and there are ceiling panels in the radiotherapy suites at Rosemere Cancer Centre. We have wanted to fit them on the Children’s Ward for some time to provide as tranquil an environment as possible to benefit our youngest patients and their parents and carers. We’re therefore very grateful to DD Porter for enabling us to have now done so.”
Andy Webb, pre construction director for DD Porter, said: “As a company, our ethos is to give back to the communities in which we work. When we learned of the Children’s Fund ceiling panel project, we immediately realised the value of it in terms of the difference it would make to the well-being of the children on the ward and anything that makes a child in hospital feel that bit better is also a benefit to their parents, carers and the medical staff looking after them.”