Creating space : hospital bedside displays as facilitators of communication between children and nurses

Over the past decades there has been a marked change in the physical environment of children's hospitals and the configuration of individual bed spaces. No longer the stark, clinical spaces typical of years gone by, the modern hospital bed space hosts a variety of visual displays reflecting different aspects of the child's life. Building upon ideas introduced by Lewis and informed by a recent qualitative study into hospital bedside displays, this article discusses the role that displays can play in developing, deepening and enriching relationships between nurses, patients and their families in the paediatric hospital environment. It discusses the links between hospital and home, the specific function of the display of photographs and the nurse's role in `knowing' the patient and facilitating links between hospital and home. It concludes that nurses' conscious observations of a visually rich environment may make a positive contribution to the care that they deliver for the benefit of their patients and themselves.