It’s no good building a children’s hospital without talking to the ones who will use it. This is why the lived experience of patients and carers is vital.
Cambridge Children’s Network, which launched in January this year, is going from strength to strength. We currently have almost 500 members of which over 300 are parents and carers and almost 150 are young people aged 14-25. Half of those parents and carers have signed up with a child under 14, giving us a real breadth of perspective on how the new hospital should look, feel and care. Listening to real life experiences – good and bad – will help us get this right.
Currently we have 45 design champions, who are taking part in monthly workshops with the design team. So far they’ve looked at what a dream hospital bedroom might look like and how a typical day pans out when you’re in hospital. In addition to this, we ran a ward design survey to gain an understanding of what people might like. Over 200 people responded!
We also hosted our first digital workshop, bringing together Network members with staff, project leads and our innovation team, Radical Panda. It was great fun sharing ideas through an app called Mural, which was a bit like digital sticky notes!
We are hugely grateful to our Cambridge Children’s Network members for all their input, ideas and enthusiasm for this exciting project. If you would like to join the Network, you can find more information here.