Designing for Family-Centred Care – From Hospital to Home

Timeframe: 2019 – 2021
Funder: Tiny Lives Trust and Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Tiny Lives is a charitable trust which supports children and their families through the earliest weeks and months of life. They usually help families who have had a very premature baby or possibly a multiple birth, where the child needs specialised care. Tiny Lives has a close relationship with the Newcastle Hospitals special-care baby unit (SCBU) based at the RVI, which serves the north of England. Through the research partnership with the School of Design, Tiny Lives and project leads from the Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust aim to develop a clearer picture of families’ experiences of the support and care they receive through these first weeks and months. Human-centred approaches from Service Design are being used to map and model experiences of care from a family-centred viewpoint. The research will consider the lived-experience of the support provided, through a number of key milestones in each family’s journey. In particular, it will focus on understanding the family’s perspective in the build-up towards being discharged and in the hours, days and weeks after moving back to the family home. The project will culminate in a range of prototypical interventions to support families through the care pathway.