Recycled furniture brings patient day room back to life
Recycled furniture has been used to reopen a much loved hospital day room after it had been closed for the past three years.
The room on Spinnaker Ward at St Mary’s Community Health Campus, Portsmouth, had been out of action since the beginning of the covid pandemic, when patients were stopped from mixing.
Now the facility has been lovingly put back together using items from Solent NHS Estates and Facilities’ furniture store at Rodney Road, Portsmouth.
It is thought that recycling unwanted tables and chairs from other parts of the Trust – rather than buying new – will have saved the rehabilitation ward around £8,000 – not to mention around 3.8 tonnes of carbon.
Philippa Cheesman, Clinical Manager, said: “Patients and staff alike are delighted to have our day room back and furnished.
“Our patients have already been doing creative group activities in there and we are encouraging them to sit at the tables for their lunch.
“The room is such a useful facility in terms of helping patients along the road to recovery. It can do people the world of good to have a change of scenery and sit somewhere comfy where they can chat to others.”
Jo Warwick, Building and Environmental Compliance Manager, said the day room was just one of many areas helped through the furniture store, which provides a central base for storing a wide range of furniture no longer needed across Solent NHS Trust.
It is estimated that the store has saved the organisation over £190,000 in avoided waste costs and purchasing new furniture – along with 61.72 tonnes of carbon.
“It was a real team effort to bring this room back to life,” said Jo.
“Thanks go to everyone from our cleaners, who decontaminated all the furniture before use, to our premises staff and waste contractors; everyone pulled together to get the day room up and running again.”
- Solent staff in need of furniture can email sustainability@solent.nhs.uk