Cross-sector collaboration brings exciting change to medical common room

The medical common room at the Maudsley Hospital is a shared space for Junior Doctor and Medical Student teaching, training and on call commitments.

Over the years it had unfortunately also become a dumping ground for unwanted furniture and out of date resources.

In response to this, Maudsley Training Programme (MTP) Junior Doctors joined forces with GKT School of Medical Education medical undergraduate department and SLaM Department of Undergraduate Psychiatry, local artists and the Maudsley Charity to renovate the room and make it fit for modern day working and training.

GKT School of Medical Education provided some money for medical student improvements. Associate Clinical Dean Dr Rachael Morris-Jones allocated some of the money to SLaM, funding a purpose built workbench, new computers, a brand new carpet, a lovely lick of white paint to replace the overpowering purple and placement of a whiteboard for future teaching.

Inspired by increasing evidence linking workplace environments with mental wellbeing, Anna Rootes and Dr Katherine Tully ran a workshop with MTP Junior Doctors asking them to draw images they associated with home, positive aspects of work, and their future aspirations. This provided them with unique inspiration to design a large wall mural, reflective of those working and training within the space.  Funded by the Maudsley Charity the mural is now complete and sits proudly in the common room.

Thanks to the work of the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust Estates department the dumped furniture has been relocated. The Junior Doctors have updated the notice boards to reflect the supportive range of wellbeing options on offer to SLaM employees and KCL students, and created a space to recognise the recent personal and professional successes of those that use the room.

Collaborative projects such as this, and the exciting work of hospital rooms, show that there is a willing within the health service to support creative endeavours focusing on staff and student wellbeing. We hope that this project will inspire other SLaM and KCL employees and students, to think pro-actively about how they too, can positively impact their working environment for the benefit of themselves, their colleagues, peers, and their patients.

Thanks especially to:

• Dr Rachael Morris-Jones, Associate Clinical Dean Denmark Hill Cluster, and Dr Charlotte Wilson Jones, Director of Undergraduate Psychiatry, for providing the Denmark Hill cluster medical student enhancement fund that has enabled the work to be carried out
• Simon Abel, Business Manager of the Department of Undergraduate Psychiatry, for bringing the whole project together and persisting where others would have stopped.
• Dr Thomas Dewhurst for working tirelessly to initiate the project and Dr Luke Skelton for ensuring completion.
• Anna Rootes, Dr Katherine Tully and Dr Will Marsh for preparing and producing such an inspiring mural, and to the Maudsley Charity for funding this work. For a more detailed write up of the mural and its grounding in workplace wellbeing theory please click here.