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Viewing Rooms, Frenchay & Southmead Hospitals

A major refurbishment of the two mortuaries at Southmead and Frenchay took place to create two calming welcoming spaces to be known as the Viewing Rooms. 

Fresh Arts appointed artist Judy Foote to create some vinyl artwork for the windows of the viewing rooms with a design that integrates with the new colour scheme inside and garden design outside.

The main aims of the commission is to uplift, calm and reassure visitors and link the two sites through similar artwork.

This commission is part of King's Fund's award-winning Enhancing the Healing Environment (EHE) project.  The EHE programme was launched by HRH The Prince of Wales in London in 2000 and has been designed to encourage and enable nurse-led teams to improve the environment in which they deliver care.  

It consisted of two main elements:

• A development programme for a multidisciplinary team, led by a nurse and including estates and facilities staff, arts coordinators, patients and strategic health authority representatives, and
• a £35,000 grant for the team to undertake a project to improve the patient environment.

The King’s Fund’s Enhancing the Healing Environment (EHE) programme was extended with the aim of physically improving the environment for those that are dying and their relatives.  North Bristol NHS Trust (NBT) was selected to improve the viewing rooms at both Frenchay and Southmead Hospitals.

The vinyl artwork project was overseen and approved by the EHE project group which is made up of hospital staff including departmental staff from both Frenchay and Southmead mortuary and viewing rooms, Estates representatives, and the Fresh Arts team.