UHP’s Secret Garden receives two awards and are the overall winner at this year’s Patient Experience Network National Awards
University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust (UHP) has won two awards at the Patient Experience Network National Awards (PENNA), which is the first and only awards programme in the country to recognise best practice in patient experience across all facets of health and social care.
The Secret Garden won on two categories, ‘Environment of Care’ and ‘Support for Caregivers, Friends and Family’, with UHP also being celebrated as the overall winner of the evening.
The completion of the Secret Garden in 2022 provided an outdoor space which, for the first time, enabled neonatal intensive care patients, and their families/carers, to experience the benefits of fresh air space. Subsequently, the wishes of a family, whose infant was diagnosed with a life limiting condition, to spend time outdoors with their child, could become a reality. To date, the space has supported over 5000 patients, allowing them and their friends, carers and families to experience the benefits of fresh air therapy.
The Secret Garden is a fully equipped, all-weather, outside space which enables all critically ill patients and their families and carers to experience the sensory, emotional and psychological benefits of a fresh air space.
PENNA selected the Secret Garden as winners across two categories as it showcases the best possible environment of care, from first arrival and throughout, with involvement from patients. Additionally, the space has been designed to meet the emotional, physical, educational and spiritual needs of the caregivers, friends, and families of patients.
Kate Tantam, Specialist Sister in the Intensive Care Unit and Rehabilitation team at UHP, said: “It is a very special place and we are very proud that since opening formally in 2022 we have supported over 5000 patients, loved ones, and staff to feel the benefits of fresh air therapy. Its unique design and innovative utilisation make it a hub for holistic therapy and care in a very busy hospital. A space that has supported patients irrespective of age, and a space that proves that when teams unite amazing things can happen.”
Additionally, Dr Alex Allwood, Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Consultant at UHP said: “From my perspective, the opportunity for the team to fulfil a family’s wishes for their dying baby to feel the warmth of the sun on her skin and the gentle caress of the fresh breeze through her hair together as a family was hugely moving.”
Feedback from our users also reflect this, with one user saying: “Our time outdoors with our son in the Secret Garden was very special. We were both amazed by and very grateful for the effort and dedication of the team to make it happen.”
This space offers support across the inpatient care experience, for neonatal, paediatric and adult patients. For our neonatal patients this may be their first experience of the external environment, and for their families, the only opportunity to capture memories in a non-hospitalised space.
To date three families of infants receiving care in the neonatal intensive care unit, have benefitted from spending time in the Secret Garden. Two of these were to create personalised end of life experiences and another to reunite a family whose parent required care in the intensive care unit. These loved one’s experiences are being translated into an academic piece of work as they are keen to share their neonatal experience in the hope it becomes a possibility for families throughout the UK.
The Secret Garden offers all patients a private, calm space to spend time with loved ones, engage with functional rehabilitation, share family events, engage in animal assisted activities and supports end-of-life care.
