Factors to Consider When Choosing Hospital Carpets

Carpets can prevent slips and falls from occurring, they feel better under foot and they can help to provide insulation during colder weather, making them a popular choice in hospitals. But what factors should you consider when choosing your hospital carpets?

Areas to Cover

Not all floor areas of the hospital are going to be suitable. For example, operating rooms, emergency rooms and other areas where spills may be common are better kept carpet free but there are other specialist floor coverings available for these areas. Instead, carpets are best suited to areas such as staff rooms, offices and waiting rooms, so it may be best to stick to these areas.

Ease of Cleaning

Wherever hospital carpets are installed they should be easy to clean. Spillages are very common in hospitals, and can include blood, bodily fluids, food and medicines. The carpets will need to be cleaned thoroughly on a regular basis, and you will want to choose a professional floor covering which can stand up to the rigours of such cleaning so that you can get more life out of them.

Carpet Designs

In areas such as offices, the design of the carpet may not be particularly important. However, in patients' rooms you will probably want carpet designs which are soothing and calming to add to the overall ambiance of the room and make the experience better for the patients.

Low Resistance

When you are choosing a solution for hospitals a thick plush is not really ideal. Hospital carpet need to be thin enough to enable trolleys and wheelchairs to be moved around on them with ease, and thick carpets will only hinder this.

Tiles or Rolled

When choosing your carpet, you might want to opt for tiles instead of standard rolled carpets. There are a number of reasons for this as they are easier to install, far easier to replace small sections and don't require as much maintenance as rolled carpets. On top of that, if one area of the carpet becomes heavily stained then you can simply replace the single tile instead of the whole carpet, making it a more cost-effective solution.

Consider These Factors with Hospital Carpets

Choosing carpets for your hospital involves careful consideration of all the above factors. If you choose the wrong carpets then you can end up wasting money and finding out that they do not last as long as you had hoped. Always go with quality carpets from a reliable manufacturer, and consider the above points when choosing your carpets to ensure that they are the most suitable for your hospital.

Joseph, Hamilton and Seaton (JHS) have been a leading supplier of commercial carpet and floor coverings in the UK for over 50 years. JHS is based in Tamworth in the West Midlands and operates from a purpose built facility offering a next day delivery service to most areas in the UK.

JHS can supply a wide range of carpets, carpet tiles, and floor coverings including hospital carpets. The JHS product range offers the widest selection of carpets and flooring solutions available to architects, flooring companies and other specifiers.

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Four Factors That Office Interior Designers Must Consider When Designing an Office

As a work place, the office is unique in the manner in which those working there interact. While factory floors have operators working singularly or in teams to complete physical tasks, and studios are the type of venue for more creative work by artistic employees that often work silently alone, the general commercial office has a lot more going on. For office interior designers, this means an array of spacial and organisational problems that need to be negotiated.

While manufacturing spaces are almost cavernous, ruled by the typically large machinery that is being used and practical issues relating to moving products, and studios are far quieter, manned by a small number of individuals, the modern office can have dozens of staff all working in close proximity. Therefore, office planning requires a very different approach than the other work areas.

While there is a wide range of styles to choose from, the actual commercial design chosen must serve several basic needs which can be divided into four main categories, namely the office network, communication practices, the regulations that must be complied with, and future office needs that may require attention.

Office Network

The office network is basically the required network of individual work areas, executive offices, meeting rooms, reception area, boardroom and non work related areas like break room, kitchen and toilet facilities. Of particular importance is how this network of office facilities relate to each other, especially which departments should be closest to each other.

The provision of executive offices, boardroom and meeting rooms means that the overall available space for general office staff is reduced dramatically, but these facilities must be provided. While the toilets and reception area can be reduced to the minimum space necessary, some imaginative designs are needed to ensure the remaining space accommodates the general staff needs.

Communication

This relates to how the flow of work in the office is channelled between different departments, and between workers themselves. The idea is to avoid a crisscross motion of work, to ensure traffic in the office does not crash into each other. The movement of reports and use of meeting areas by specific workers come into the equation too so as to ensure the most relevant organisation is applied. In essence, the individual workers that need to be located close to each other are, and are placed closest to the relevant executive office. Also, sections that are likely to cause noise, and therefore a distraction for office staff, are also accounted for with specific photocopying and printing rooms established to place office equipment out of sight and keep noise levels as low as possible.

Regulations

Every type of working area is affected by building and safety regulations, which must be complied with. These regulations need to be taken into account at the initial planning stage too, with aspects such as the position and number of fire extinguishers, position of exits and an ensured clear passage towards them all figuring in design calculations. Style of office sprinkler systems may also need to considered, and by extension the style of lighting system.

Another regulation that need to be complied with is that of easy access for those with physical disabilities, which generally means wider isles between desks, and greater back to back spaces between workers, so as to accommodate wheelchair users.

Possible Future Needs

Finally, with the knowledge that an office can change quite dramatically over a short period of time, particularly if business has to hire new personnel, allowances are often made for the future needs of the business. For example, more generous desk spacing and aisle widths are applied than is necessary, thereby keeping extra space in reserve.

In order to ensure future needs are accommodated, office interior designers will usually carry out yearly space analysis, usually at the time that the client is preparing their budget, allowing them the opportunity to make factor in any necessary costs. All of these areas of consideration are necessary if the commercial design to be used is to be efficient.

After all, establishing efficiency, and in doing so creating a workable, organised and overall enjoyable working environment, is the principal offpoint of ice planning. For the designer, the task is a detailed and rather complicated one, but brings its own satisfaction when completed successfully.

Sarah Shore writes articles for Interaction, a respected provider of high quality, unique and bespoke commercial design services to large and small organisations in the UK. Interaction's highly qualified and professional office interior designers have a portfolio of well known clients, and specialise in office design including the implementation of new furniture, colour schemes, art, lighting and much more whilst complying to the latest health and safety standards.

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