About The King's Critical Care Roof Garden
The King's Critical Care Roof Garden was conceived more than a decade ago by Dr Thomas Best, Clinical Director Critical Care, and the project team supporting the build of the Critical Care Centre at King's College hospital. Funded by the King's College Hospital Charity and supported by the wider institution, it has been a journey.
History
There is an extraordinary story behind the King's Critical Care Roof Garden, linked both to John Ruskin and the Ruskin Park, adjacent to the hospital, but also coming from the hospital itself. In World War One, King's College Hospital was General Hospital Four, and cared for injured soldiers. Patients used the outside spaces next to wards as well as Ruskin Park itself, with more than 2000 people admitted at any one time.
“Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather. ”
John Ruskin
King's Critical Care Roof Garden
The Journey in Pictures
King's Critical Care Roof Garden
The Idea
When patients become critically ill, they are taken from their lives, their families, their jobs, the people and places they know. They wake in an alien world, dependent on machines and intensive care staff for the most basic activities of daily living, including breathing. Whilst intensive care services are good at immediate and emergency resuscitation and organ support, there has historically been less of a focus on rehabilitation and counteracting some of the consequences of supportive care. This includes damaged bodies but also damaged minds. The King's Critical Care Roof Garden has been implemented, with the aim of rebalancing this focus. It provides a stepping stone for patients and families, towards recovery. We not only want to save lives but also return people to their lives as quickly and as fully as possible.
Dr Thomas Best, OBE
Clinical Director & Co-Investigator - FRESH AIR
Malcolm Hankey
Lead Project Manager
Senior Manager-Transition & Digital including King's Critical Care Roof Garden
Lina Christopoulou
King's Critical Care Roof Garden
The Team
Dr Phil Hopkins
Co Investigator - FRESH AIR
Senior Lecturer in Faculty of Medicine, KCL
Professor Louise Rose MBE
Dr Dan Hadfield
Co-investigator - FRESH AIR
Post Doctoral Fellow & Lecturer, KCL
Professor of Critical Care Nursing & Head of Research Division (Applied Technologies in Clinical Care), Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery & Palliative Care, King's College, London
Co-investigator - FRESH AIR
Iona Jay
King's College Hospital Charity
Kevin Latchem
Senior ACCP and Current Principle investigator - FRESH AIR
Jacqueline Gaynor
Mick Dowling
Matron Critical Care - Governance & Safety
Head Of Nursing Critical Care
The late Professor Dunnet was the lead designer on the King's Critical Care Roof Garden. Without him, the project would not have happened and we want to acknowledge the extraordinary contribution he made.
Professor Nigel Dunnet
Green spaces & gardens in hospitals around the world
ICU gardens around the world
There are many incredible green spaces and gardens associated with critical care units around the UK and wider. These include a mixture of simple pragmatic designs and more complex installations. It is more common to construct ICU gardens at ground level in existing spaces, other designs are more complex. There are also now more ICU garden builds in roof garden settings.
Previous sustainable wild flower installations from Professor Dunnett
Sustainable,
