The Nook - 21st century care for a brand new state-of-the-art hospice
The Nook is an innovative, new, purpose-built children’s hospice set on a five-acre woodland site in the beautiful Norfolk countryside near Norwich.
Following a £10 million fundraising appeal, East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices (EACH) were able to design and build the hospice to meet the increasing demand for their services and the changing, more complex needs of the children and young people they care for.
The Nook was officially opened by HRH The Duchess of Cambridge in November 2019 and replaces EACH’s former hospice at Quidenham. The Nook includes a far larger and open-plan single-floor layout, together with a hydrotherapy pool, en-suite bedrooms, family rooms and a state-of-the-art sensory room.
Read on to discover how Guldmann expertise helped deliver the project on time and in budget and how the Guldmann product range has helped to improve the daily lives of the EACH staff along with the children, young adults and families they support at The Nook.
Delivering the project on time and in budget
The initial design consultation took place in February 2015 and owing to the complex nature of the building, the pitch of the roof, the angled internal ceilings and seamless patient transfer requirements from room to room, it was clear that a fully co-ordinated design approach was required.
Throughout the design and subsequent construction phase, the Guldmann team adopted the 4 C’s method (Coordination, Cooperation, Collaboration and Communication), to realise the optimum specification, installation and various commercial benefits with all of the stakeholders (including the site team RG Carter), to deliver the hoist systems as agreed by EACH.
In total, a mixture of 22 GH3 and 3 GH3+ ceiling hoists were installed in 27 rooms, with Combi-lock systems incorporated to enable effortless transfers between rooms.
The award-winning GH3 ceiling hoist is a unique lifting module with a simple yet elegant design that is user-friendly and powerful enough to handle lifting and moving procedures in all professional care settings. The GH3 module also charges itself through the rails in the bedrooms, ensuring that the hoist is always ready to use.
The GH3+ lifting module offers a number of more specialised advancements over the standard GH3, allowing Guldmann, when required, to tailor a hoisting system to a facilities specific needs.
Tailoring includes adding modules such as an Integrated Weigh Scale or Care Lift Management (CLM) which can be used for monitoring and improving procedures for safe patient handling and for optimising resource planning.
Transforming care at The Nook using Guldmann solutions
We caught up with Clare Lindsay, EACH Occupational Therapist, to find out how they are getting on at their new hospice:
More Options
“Before moving to The Nook, we had to use a range of Mobile, Single Track and H-Frames hoists at Quidenham. This presented a number of problems for us and meant areas of the hospice were inaccessible to some children and young people.
Since moving to the new site, everyone can enjoy all areas of this amazing new building – from hydrotherapy and sensory, to soft play, music and the large and homely living areas.
The room-covering systems give young people the freedom to move around in all areas ensuring equal options for everyone – real freedom without limits.”
Time to Care
“The room-covering systems have also given our staff more time to care. As opposed to using a mobile hoist that requires charging, getting out and putting away, the hoist is ready and waiting.
In our busy setting, ceiling track hoist is a safer alternative because all the equipment is high up and out of the way.
This means we can spend more time caring for the children and young people, doing more of the things they enjoy.”
Personalisation
“The hoists were originally installed to a standard specification but when a Guldmann engineer was onsite, he discussed the possibility of personalising the hoists to accommodate the children’s needs.
This included turning off the audible sounds and reducing the lifting speed which enhanced the enjoyability and comfortability of using the hoist.
The way in which we deliver care at The Nook has been transformed with the hoists contributing to this.”
