Hospital built environment impacts on patient and staff experience V1
Research type
Research Study
Full title
To evaluate the impacts of built-environment design and features on patient and staff outcomes following redevelopment at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital London
IRAS ID
357961
Contact name
Sadhana Jagannath
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Imperial College London
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 7 months, 31 days
Research summary
The proposed research aims to evaluate the redevelopments undertaken at the Day Surgery Unit, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, London, on patient and staff outcomes. We want to assess the impacts of the features introduced such as canopy and planters, individual patient waiting booths, artworks on lightboxes and cabin doors, and further aesthetic refurbishments on patient and staff experience and psychological outcomes such as such as stress, satisfaction with place, emotional and social wellbeing, and a sense of control. We want to ultimately understand what good day surgery unit designs can and should offer to its patients and staff.
Data will be collected through surveys, interviews and observations between October 2025 and May 2026, on-site at the Day Surgery Unit, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.
We will conduct around 40 hours of observations of the areas to understand how the patients and staff use the new features and interact with it. Data will involve journey mapping and noting the number of instances of staff and patients looking at, talking about and using the new features. Interactions with patients or staff during observations is not expected. We expect insights from the observations to feed into interview and survey designs. We will conduct interviews 10-minute interviews with 10-15 patients and up to 30-minute interviews with staff across the different job families (surgeons, nurse, HCA, ODP/anaesthetic Nurse, anaesthetists and admin/clerical staff) to understand their experience and outcomes in the newly designed unit. Our online surveys with paper versions will assess the extent to which the design features contribute to user experiences and outcomes of over 50 staff and patients. We will host a session at the Clinical Governance Day at the Hospital to gather feedback from staff and share preliminary insights from our research activities.
REC name
North West - Haydock Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
25/NW/0343
Date of REC Opinion
23 Dec 2025
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion