The Enhancing the Healing Environment (EHE) programme was launched by HRH The Prince of Wales, President of The King’s Fund in 2000, as part of The King’s Fund’s activities to mark the millennium.

 The aim of this innovative grants and development programme is to encourage and enable local teams of healthcare staff to work in partnership with service users to improve the environment in which they deliver care and consists of two main elements: a development programme for a nurse led, multidisciplinary team; and a grant for the teams to undertake a project to improve their patient environment.

 Following the launch of the 2010 programme, 202 teams from 143 NHS Trusts, two hospices and 34 HM prisons will have joined the programme and over 2,000 staff and service users will have been involved in improving their healthcare environment. In addition the EHE team has provided consultancy support to over 25 hospices who have sought to improve their care environment.

 The EHE programme has set out to achieve clear outcomes in terms of:

• significant improvements in each of the participating organisations
• increased knowledge of the impact of healing environments, including the arts, within the healthcare system
• a group of clinical and managerial staff who can influence future healthcare environments through the skills gained during the development programme
• a body of evidence of the impact of the healing environment on patients and staff
• a range of resource materials for wider dissemination and use.

Projects have ranged from refurbishments of corridors, redesigns of hospital waiting areas, the creation of gardens and quiet spaces, the introduction of art works in patient areas, and improvements to bereavement facilities and mortuary viewing rooms. Projects are showing what can be achieved with vision, wide engagement and relatively small amounts of money.

Recent programmes have included improvements to the healthcare environment in:

Environments for Care at End of Life

To support the implementation of the End of Life Care Strategy published in 2008 the Department of Health commissioned The King’s Fund to work with 20 NHS organizations, including acute and mental health trusts and a prison to improve environments for care at end of life. Projects have ranged from palliative care rooms with dedicated accommodation for relatives to the creation of bereavement centres and the redesign of mortuary viewing areas.  The programme has been concurrently evaluated by the University of Nottingham.

HM Prisons and Young Offenders Institutions

Following a pilot programme and using the experience gained from working with over sixty mental health trusts, The King’s Fund in partnership with Her Majesty’s Prison Service and Offender Health, DH, extended the EHE programme to twenty HMP/YOIs in England and Wales. Teams are working on a range of projects to improve the environment in which health services are delivered to people in prison. A further ten HMP/YOIs joined the programme in 2010. The Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health’s evaluation of the pilot programme indicates that the EHE programme goes beyond changing a physical environment and can act as a catalyst for wider systemic, process and human dynamic change within the prison service.

Environments for Care for People with Dementia 

A new Department of Health funded programme was launched in 2009 to improve the care environment for people with dementia and to support the implementation of the first national dementia care strategy. Ten projects were chosen to reflect the different stages of the care pathway from diagnosis to end of life care and to act as exemplars of how practical improvements in the hospital environment can enhance the experience of service users and carers. A further 12 NHS Trusts joined this programme in 2010.  Previous EHE projects to improve the environment of care for people with dementia are already showing how accidents and incidents of challenging behaviours can be reduced by redesign and refurbishment.  

Further information about the EHE progamme and The King’s Fund can be found at http://www.kingsfund.org.uk/current_projects/enhancing_the_healing_environment/index.html