Mothers Expressing rooms – Trust-wide. 

In recent years, Northumbria Healthcare’s Bright charity has invested in multiple specially designed spaces for staff and relatives to take time out of the busy and often stressful  clinical environment.  Following the Covid pandemic a well-being audit was completed as part of the trust’s recovery plan and a need was identified to provide a space for members of staff returning to work from maternity leave where they could continue with their breastfeeding journey in a space that offered dignity, privacy, and comfort.

The Bright Charity was approached by our Trust Breast-Feeding Co-ordinator to come up with a scheme that fitted the brief. Following extensive research, the charity created a mood board to show staff the various colour options and furniture styles available to them. Space was allocated on the three main sites to begin with, and each space was different in size and shape ranging from tiny to small, some spaces had no windows others did. 

The feedback from the mood board was that everyone liked all of the colour choices so we decided to create a scheme identifying each site with a slightly different colour scheme but unifying it by providing certain items as standard, a recliner so the person could relax while expressing, soft lighting to help create a cosy environment, charging points for mobiles, wall mirrors, fridges to store breast milk and insulated backpacks to help with storage.  

These spaces have now been transformed and staff have a unique space fit for purpose. The Bright charity also provides drinks and biscuits for users and our volunteers take pride in keeping the room clean and stocked up so that they are available 24 hours a day.  The feedback from the staff has been incredible and shown there was an urgent need for this type of facility which is greatly appreciated.