Room Story: Hospital Critical Care - Malcolm Hart Foundation

Client: Malcolm Hart Foundation
Location: Imperial Hospital, North London

With support from the Malcolm Hart Foundation, the Critical Care Unit at a North London hospital embarked on a project to revamp its family rooms and communal waiting areas outside Intensive Care. The aim was to create spaces that felt genuinely comforting for families during some of the most difficult moments they will ever face.

Challenges

Updating old, tired areas: Both the family rooms and waiting areas needed to provide comfort and support, with designs that encouraged relaxation during moments of distress.

Ensuring NHS Compliance: The redesign had to meet NHS standards, incorporating safety, infection control, and the use of durable, easy-to-maintain materials.

Balancing Comfort and Practicality: The communal waiting area had to accommodate multiple visitors while maintaining a sense of quiet, and the family rooms needed to offer privacy and comfort for sensitive conversations.

Solutions

Colour and Design: Colour was introduced to both the family rooms and waiting areas, chosen to add brightness and warmth to a mix of very small private rooms and larger open-plan communal spaces. The palette was carefully considered to feel calm and human rather than clinical.

Furniture Selection: In the family rooms, we chose comfortable sofas large enough to lie down on — visits to ICU often mean long, late nights for close family and friends. Accent furniture was arranged to facilitate quiet, supportive conversation, with side tables providing practical use alongside a new kitchen area.

The communal waiting area was furnished with high-back sofas and armchairs arranged to create informal pods — giving visitors a sense of semi-private space within the larger room, adaptable to different group sizes while maintaining a feeling of calm.

NHS Compliance: All materials, furnishings and finishes were selected to comply with NHS infection control standards, ensuring the spaces remained hygienic and easy to maintain. The layout preserved clear pathways and full accessibility throughout.

Results

The transformed spaces provided families with a genuinely comforting environment during one of the most stressful experiences of their lives. The new furniture arrangement improved both flexibility and functionality, allowing the rooms to serve different needs at different times of day. All work was completed fully within NHS guidelines, and the project was praised by hospital staff, families and the Foundation alike.

Conclusion

This project was made possible by the generous support of the Malcolm Hart Foundation, whose mission is to create a Malcolm Hart Quiet Room in every hospital that needs one — recognising how much the physical environment matters to families facing the hardest of times.

It is a project we are genuinely proud to have been part of, and a reminder of how thoughtful design can make a real difference to people's lives.

Find out more about the charity at www.malcolmhartfoundation.com

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