New 'out of this world' space themed designs unveiled in Chesterfield Royal Hospital's paediatric X-Ray room

The hospital unveiled the new celestial designs, which were created with Chesterfield Royal’s imaging team and Fujifilm, last month.

Professionals hope by transforming the space with mood lighting and images of spaceships and aliens it will help the space feel less clinical and make patients feel more comfortable ahead of their X-Ray.

The new artwork took less than a day to install and can be wiped down in compliance with the hospital’s infection control guidelines in each room.

Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust thanked Fujifilm ‘for their generosity’ and Fast Signs for their print and design work which was used to brighten up the department.Clinical Specialist Radiographer Steven Cullen said: “It looks spectacular and gives the children, teenagers and even the adults a real lift when they come in.

"They’ll be coming for a diagnostic x-ray and won’t necessarily know what to expect so to be brought into this fun and uplifting environment really changes their mindset, puts them at ease and helps them to relax whilst we perform the scan.

“We’ve become a reference site for Fujifilm after they redeveloped our Radiology Department and they offered to come in and design the space for us.

"It was their idea to fill the walls with spaceships, aliens, planets, stars, installing some mood lighting and even put what can only be described as a mission control panel across our own scanning booth. It’s really very inventive, visual and I think some of the parents and even my colleagues get a bit of a buzz from it as well.”

The hospital has used artwork and colourful designs across wards to relax patients, in particular the NGS Macmillan Unit which was designed with a glass front to bring the countryside view to chemotherapy patients.

Within Chesterfield Royal’s cancer unit, there are also pictures of the Derbyshire landscapes and landmarks above most beds in the new and refurbished wards and the main entrance was also designed in a way to make it feel less clinical.

Steven added: “We’ve done it for the adults as well.

"Another of our rooms has now got a huge mural of the Chesterfield town centre where a panoramic photograph has been touched up to resemble a painting.

"It has the same effect as the space theme in that people look at it and try to find their house, favourite pub or restaurant.

"I suppose you could call it a distraction technique to help put patients at ease and give them something else to concentrate on instead of the machinery, which can be imposing against our very high walls, and whatever it is that’s causing them to be here.

“It’s been very well received, encouraged discussion between our patients and radiographers and we’re hoping that we can do something very similar in other x-ray rooms, maybe even in other imaging modalities such as CT and MRI.

"Anything such as this that improves the patient experience is worth considering.”

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