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Case Study — 3 February 2015


Design Bugs Out


Creating four pieces of hospital furniture and equipment to
eliminate bugs.

Design Challenge
Launched in August 2008, Design Bugs Out was a
design challenge run in partnership with
the Department of Health and the NHS Purchasing
and Supply Agency.  Its aim was to bring designers
and manufacturers together with clinical
specialists, patients and frontline staff to help
combat infections by making hospital furniture and
equipment easier and quicker to clean.

On looking at the various items of

hospital equipment most likely to
spread infection, our simple insight
was that they were difficult to clean.
Mat Hunter, Chief Design Officer, Design Council

The problem

Healthcare Associated Infections (HCAIs) are infections

acquired in hospitals or due to healthcare interventions.
They are caused by a wide variety of micro-organisms,
including bacteria that normally live harmlessly in or on our
bodies. The National Audit Office estimates that 5,000
people die each year from infections such as MRSA, and that
this costs the NHS £1bn a year.
Historically, items of hospital furniture have primarily been
designed for functionality and little attention has been paid
to the cleanability of the products. To complement the
Department of Health’s wider approach to addressing the
HCAI challenge, we set out to find design solutions for
hospital furniture that could contribute towards preventing
infection and make cleaning easier, taking into account the
behaviour of hospital staff, patients and visitors.  

The insight

Based on initial research with users, Design Council

undertook a wide-ranging review of the clinical environment
to identify areas that would benefit most from design input.
The team, including designers, ergonomists and researchers,
visited a number of NHS hospitals and worked with
patients, nurses, domestics and other staff to discuss issues
and experience them firsthand.
This work identified 51 design opportunities, which were
considered by a project Expert Reference Group (ERG) and
Advisory Board.
These were shortlisted to ten opportunities in two streams:
five ‘quick wins’ that were developed by the Helen Hamlyn
Centre (Royal College of Art) and five that were advertised
via a national design competition.

Our response

The national competition explicitly required bidding

manufacturers to partner with a design firm. Four winning
teams accessed a grant of £25,000 and worked with Design
Council, the ERG and the Advisory Board to develop their
product proposals.

The results

The resulting range of commodes,

blood pressure cuffs, bedside
cabinets and patient chairs are
designed with fewer nooks, crannies
and textures where bugs can hide.
Mat Hunter, Chief Design Officer, Design Council

The project led to the development of four pieces of

furniture and equipment, specifically designed to eliminate
dirt traps, make cleaning quicker and easier and, ultimately,
reduce the incidence of HCAIs.
Mat Hunter, Chief Design Officer, at Design Council,
says: “The resulting range of commodes, blood pressure
cuffs, bedside cabinets and patient chairs are designed with
fewer nooks, crannies and textures where bugs can
hide. These products have successfully been procured and
used in the NHS, saving countless lives from the threat of
superbugs.”
Designers and manufacturers worked in conjunction with
NHS users to create prototypes of the products for
evaluation in eight showcase hospitals.  The products
comprised a commode, bedside cabinet, overbed table
and patient chair.
View the furniture products developed through
Design Bugs Out

The eClean™ bedside cabinet, designed by Kinneir Dufort and manufactured

by Hospital Metalcraft Ltd (Bristol Maid™), is a three-drawer bedside cabinet
made from a durable ‘easy clean’ polymer with a single skin design.

The overbed table was designed by Geoff Hollington and manufactured by

Knightsbridge Furniture Ltd. It is moulded from SMC5 to facilitate easy
cleaning and it is height adjustable for overbed and over-chair use.
PearsonLloyd commode - Design consultancy PearsonLloyd, leading medical
seating manufacturer Kirton Healthcare and researchers at Brunel University
joined forces to redesign the hospital commode with a shell that is 100%
polypropylene and a stainless steel frame.

Patient chairs are used for around 2-8 hours a day, enhancing the risk of
pressure sores, tissue damage and increasing the build up of bacteria in the
frame and cushion. PearsonLloyd’s Patient Chair sets out to address these
issues.

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Following rigorous assessments that replicated the routine
hospital cleaning procedures of typically contaminated
hospital furniture, the new products proved to be easier to
clean and they are now available online in the NHS Supply
Chain catalogue.  
Stuart Davis, managing director of Bristol Maid,
who designed a bedside cabinet, said that the NHS
competition was the driving force behind the company’s
eClean range. It now has a suite of six products developed as
a direct result of the Design Bugs Out competition.
“That gave us the impetus to keep going and invest more,”
says Stuart.
“The bedside cabinet was the initial success and received
£25,000 of funding from the Department of Health but that
gave us the faith to invest more heavily and become much
more innovative and ambitious, realising there was desire
and a market for these products.”
Full details of the evaluation of the furniture products can be
downloaded from the Department of Health website.  

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