Lighting healthcare has always required specialist knowledge and experience in order to meet client expectations, but when I look at the last five or so years, I’d argue that that these levels of specialism are increasing project-on-project, yearon-year. I believe these trends are being driven, and accelerated, by a number of different factors: some healthcare-specific, some technology-related, and others more pervasive to all industries – such as the rising cost of energy, and the drive for Net Zero
In 2020, the NHS pledged to become Net Zero carbon by 2040, and has launched a Green Plan outlining its expectations for carbon reduction and operational energy efficiency. There is a particular focus on reducing Scope 1 and 2 emissions across the entire NHS estate by making sure companies across the supply chain embed sustainable practices into their plans and practices. There is also an increasing focus on the whole-life carbon impact of building materials, which includes embodied carbon – the emissions generated from the sourcing, manufacture, and transportation of products. This of course includes emissions linked to lighting and M&E – something that is driving Whitecroft Lighting to reimagine its products.
All change
It has always been the responsibility of suppliers such as Whitecroft to not only keep up with complex new industry demands and the pace of change, but also to ensure that they retain knowledge – recycling and refining best practice from project-to-project. This is what I see as being at the heart of becoming a specialist in any market. Take the impact of infection control, for example. Even for lighting specification, maintaining infection control is now critical, particularly as infections are becoming more resistant to cleaning agents, with COVID-19 understandably pushing this up the agenda. We are also seeing the demands on lighting being led by the needs of specialist units across the healthcare estate. For example, A&E lighting now has to be more robust to reflect the unpredictable demands of that space, while patients in dedicated mental health and dementia units are being considered as having long-term needs, so can no longer be managed by mainstream services. There’s no such thing as ‘one size fits all’.
Because each aspect of a specialist unit across the hospital estate is now geared towards its version of a patient’s assessment and recovery, manufacturers such as Whitecroft Lighting have to meet these demands head-on, and bring our own specialist knowledge for each environment.
Particular demands
Compliance standards have also changed, such as around the need to reduce lighting glare for patient comfort, and providing lighting to aid a specific task, and balancing this with an environment that aids patient recovery. This can only be achieved if products deliver light where it is needed for a clinical task, or for a patient to rest. NHS Trusts are also increasingly sensitive to the impact that lighting specification and design decisions have on ongoing energy use, and an increasing number are keen to use their knowledge to influence what is installed
The four pillars of lighting
Based on the direction of travel of the NHS and healthcare, Whitecroft has developed four strategic lighting pillars to guide its decision making:
Infection control
All our lighting products are now built to withstand regular and rigorous cleaning regimes, and the application of stronger cleaning agents, chemical solutions, or gases.
Design and compliance
Achieving compliance and other performance targets means guaranteeing that correct lighting levels, uniformity, and glare limits are achieved, along with the colour temperature and rendition that aids treatment, and also care and recovery.
User experience
The links between lighting and wellbeing are now well established, with the right environment delivering visual comfort to staff, patients, and visitors, but crucially, also helping to put patients’ minds at rest and contributing to their recovery. The right quality of lighting also aids the clinical team in carrying out their duties.
Energy and sustainability
Low-energy lighting systems have an important part to play in reducing running costs and operational carbon, while Whitecroft is also increasingly applying circular economy principles to healthcare lighting, by increasing use of long-life and replaceable components that reduce the use of materials, waste, and embodied carbon
Two valuable recent examples of where these ‘four pillars’ have been combined to good effect are Southmead Hospital, Bristol, and Peterborough City Hospital.
Southmead Hospital
At Southmead, the client was Varsity Health, but it was identified by facility managers, Bouygues, that large areas of hospital corridor lighting had reached the end of their lifecycle, and a new lighting installation, and an upgrade of the emergency lighting system, were required. As well as complying with healthcare environment regulations, the upgraded lighting also had to be built to withstand the rigours of frequent antibacterial cleaning chemicals and processes. It also had to look good to patients, staff, and visitors, and provide the required lighting levels and glare rating.
However, experience has also proven that there is a sensible approach to lighting non-specialist clinical environments, such as corridors, which are essentially just transit areas, apart from ward corridors – so you have to be pragmatic with your engineering and budget.
Whitecroft Lighting had undertaken the previous corridor lighting upgrade, and as a result of our retained knowledge, our in-house design team was able to quickly assess various sections of lighting in situ, and design a gear tray replacement that worked with as much of the existing infrastructure as possible.
Potential for a lot of waste
We knew that the existing corridor lighting consisted of a big polycarbonate diffuser with a steel body and plasterboard margin ceiling, which, if entirely replaced, would create a lot of waste for landfill, and huge disruption in a live and functioning hospital. We decided that a bespoke approach would create the best possible outcome for each specific area of lighting, and would also reduce waste materials by 80%.
We rapidly replaced 6,500 luminaires with a custom-designed and built linear gear tray, which was mounted with emergency lighting, minimising disruption to hospital staff, patients, and visitors, and saving the client time and money. We also custom built a secondary diffuser to sit behind the polycarbonate body to diffuse glare from the LEDs – which is a more intense light source than the fluorescent lighting. This also afforded the client a quick and easy way to clean and change the LEDs, while the LED lighting increased operational energy efficiency by as much as 72%.
Peterborough City Hospital
Another recent project, this time at the mental health unit at Peterborough’s City Hospital, highlighted the importance of understanding the specialist compliance requirements in a clinical environment such as this. As with Southmead, Whitecroft hasa long history with Peterborough, having supplied florescent luminaires to the new hospital, including to its specialist services Mental Health and Integrated Care Centre in 2009
In our latest project, as part of the unit’s natural lifecycling process, Whitecroft upgraded the emergency lighting systems and completed the centre’s conversion to low-energy LED lighting.
Above and beyond the quality of the lighting systems supplied, I’d categorise the value added to Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust in three key ways. Firstly, there was the benefit of ‘institutional memory’, i.e. because we knew the space, the site, and the lighting systems, we were again able to work with the existing infrastructure to quickly deliver LED lighting, and integrate it into existing components. We utilised the existing luminaire body and provided a replacement gear tray and diffuser, so the client didn’t have to compromise, and did so without disrupting the specialist ceiling or the patients’ bedrooms.
Sustainability
As at Southmead, this created less waste by reducing the need to use new products and materials, which brings me on to my second area of value: sustainability. In order to achieve its Net Zero objectives, it is essential that the NHS replace its conventional lighting with LED technology, and at Peterborough City Hospital this has cut energy consumption by half
However, carbon emissions were also reduced in other ways. For example, undertaking the product conversions on site as opposed to at the factory reduced transportation by 50%, while utilising existing materials meant 35% less waste to landfill or recycling. The third element of value – clinical compliance – is in many ways the most critical. Working in a mental health facility brings with it specialist challenges that go beyond the technical, and the priority has to be the wellbeing of the service-users.
At Peterborough City Hospital our brief was to upgrade the lighting in 200 plus rooms, but this couldn’t be all undertaken simultaneously, as it would have been too disruptive for patients to congregate in breakout spaces. We had instead to devise a phased approach.
Working with the team, we conducted a trial installation in a small number of rooms, and used them as a guide as to what time and resources would be required to complete the work in the unit in batches of two to three rooms at a time. This allowed the staff to support a small number of service-users at a time, and when they returned to their rooms the environment was complete and visually unchanged – an important factor for those that find obvious disruption to their space unsettling.