Watch the Modular Bed Pod film on Vimeo
Designers Nightingale Associates and Billings Jackson Design, together with industry supplier SAS International tackled the open brief to address wider issues of patient dignity and enable NHS Trusts to rethink the way that space is used in wards.
Designing the Modular Bed Pod
In response the team developed the Modular Bed Pod, a prefabricated modular bed system that aims to free up underused ward space, give patients more control of their direct environment, and offer hospital staff easier bed areas to work around.
Installation
The solution has been designed so that it can be rapidly installed, enabling hospitals to quickly convert underused space into single bed-spaces, without the need for major refurbishment.
The team realized that if all the components that make up the bed-environment could be integrated into one product, procurement and installation could be simplified substantially.
Complete bed environment
The Modular Bed Pod is a complete bed-environment, incorporating everything from medical gases and drip-rails to lighting and a bedside locker.
Increased privacy
The Pod features a retractable outer shell and an individual modesty screen that the patient can control for increased privacy. Ambient lighting behind the bed head uses the curved panel to distribute light evenly around the bed-space, and low-level LED lighting gives patients enough visibility to safely navigate around the ward at night, when generally lighting levels are reduced to promote sleep.
Optimised acoustics
The curved, perforated metal bed head and ceiling canopy re-direct sound waves down onto the bed, rather than across the room, so that the volume of conversations between clinician and patient could be reduced by as much as twenty decibels.