The Royal London bookcase project
My name is Lucie Emery, I’m a 26-year-old French nurse.
Since 2018, I’ve been working at the Royal London Hospital within the orthopaedic, plastics and trauma department as a staff nurse.
In the orthopaedic, trauma and plastic surgery wards, patients come in with injuries that sometimes result in a long-term hospital stay. Due to these injuries, patients can be restricted in their mobility and/or can be bed bound for an extended period of time. This can lead to boredom, lack of motivation towards recovery and rehabilitation or frustration.
My thought was that by decreasing these feelings, patients could have more motivation to engage with therapy and rehabilitation, which means their health and recovery could be positively impacted.
Due to the pandemic and the visitor’s policy changing as a result to better protect patients and staff, patients don’t have many activities to do after they have been seen by doctors, nurses, and therapists. Having a book at hand can provide them with entertainment, which in the long term can improve their mood and inpatient experience.
Having books at hand was also an easy way of decreasing frustration that could lead to abuse towards staff by keeping patients distracted.
I initially decided to renovate the already existing bookcase on the trauma ward (12D) and filled it with new donated books with the help of DopeReaders, a book community who helped with books donations from publishers.
Two brand new bookcases were funded by The Friends of The Royal London Hospital and were built for the project. One of those bookcases was put in place in the orthopaedic, plastics and trauma ward (12C). I chose this ward because I already knew from working there that patients were not very mobile and able to go outside or entertain themselves. Another bookcase was installed in the care of the elderly ward (14F). Here patients tend to stay for a longer period as well - I saw the potential benefit from having books in their café space.
With the help of Joanna Ribeiro (orthopaedic nurse coordinator) and Ashraf Master (trauma SHO), we studied the project’s impact in more depth in 12C ward by giving out questionnaires before and after the bookcase was in place.
We noticed that a large majority of patients felt like there wasn’t enough entertainment on the ward and 65% believed that reading a book suited to their taste during their stay could improve the satisfaction of their hospital admission, whilst 83% believed that reading a book suited to their taste could help prevent boredom. 57% said that reading made them feel happier, thus making them more motivated to recover from their injuries.
We received very positive feedback patients such as:
- “It helps distract the mind.”
- “It takes you away from the hospital.”
- “It’s opening people to reading.”
- “You forget about being in hospital, it’s a distraction tool.”
- “It’s taking the mind off the injury.”
Staff also pleasantly reacted to the project:
- “I love the idea of a bookshelf based on the ward as it’s a great way of keeping patients entertained and pass time whilst being in hospital.”
- “Personally, I think having a shelf full of books does make a massive difference to patients. A lot of them come in with nothing so it helps them keep their mind of things. Lucie has done a fantastic job with filling the shelf with books and took her time making sure there’s a variety of them patients can choose from.”
If staff would like to donate books, please email Lucie Emery to arrange collection.