Diarmuid Gavin designs special garden for terminally-ill patients at Frimley Park

The star of Home Front will be converting an existing overgrown courtyard area into a secluded garden to provide a peaceful, private place where patients and families can be together away from the hustle and bustle of the hospital ward.

Mary Dunne, director of nursing, quality and patient services at Frimley Park and sponsor of the garden project explained: “Nationally, 58% of people die in hospital. Frimley Park is a busy place and when it comes to the end of someone’s life it’s very emotional for people. We don’t always have the space for a quiet area for patients with their loved ones and this is what we want our garden to provide.”

Lead nurse for cancer and palliative care and member of the garden’s project team, Mary Hayes, said: “We sent an email to Diarmuid headed: ‘Desperate palliative care nurses seek your creative and innovative design help,’ and we’re delighted he decided to take up the challenge.”

Diarmuid’s creative and thoughtful design includes a ‘floating’ hedge of pleached trees around the perimeter (trees with branches intertwined), secluded seating areas surrounded by lush planting, and loquat trees beneath which will sit ‘water cubes’ to reflect the tree canopy and sky.

A wood and glass pavilion with its own private courtyard area will provide shelter and facilities for patients who are bed-bound, and sensitive lighting will create an added dimension allowing the garden to be accessible around the clock.

Diarmuid said: “I wanted to create a beautiful garden where there was a clear relationship between nature and man bearing in mind how the users of the garden would be viewing everything with very intense eyes.

“From my own experience, I know how important privacy and comfort are when long hours are spent day and night in hospital during the final days of someone’s life when you need to be close. Places to be alone or areas to gather as a group are valuable facilities and to have these available surrounded by the simple beauties of nature – I can appreciate how that could ease such terrible times.”

The garden, which is part funded under the King’s Fund’s Enhancing the Healing Environment programme for improving environments for care at the end of life, will take six to eight weeks to complete and is due to be finished by the end of October.

Fundraising by the garden’s project team now begins in earnest to supplement the original grant from the King’s Fund, the trust and a generous donation already received from the hospital’s WRVS shop.

Various fundraising events are being held, including a prestigious reception, dinner and auction when Diarmuid will be giving a presentation at the Savill Garden, Virginia Water on 25 September. Tickets will shortly be available at £75 per head.

If anyone would like to purchase tickets for this event, or donate an auction prize, the garden project team would be delighted to hear from you on 01276 526904.

Frimley Park Hospital NHS Foundation Trust was one of just 20 trusts nationwide to win a bid worth £30,000 as part of the Department of Health and King’s Fund’s Enhancing the Healing Environment (EHE) programme. The programme’s aim is to physically improve the environment for those that are dying and their relatives.


The King’s Fund is an independent charitable foundation working for better healthcare. It carries out research, policy analysis and development activities, working on its own, in partnerships and through funding. It is a major resource to people working in health and social care, offering leadership development programmes, seminars and workshops, publications, information and library services.


Links:

http://www.diarmuidgavindesigns.co.uk/