Extensive refurb project transforms Hull facility

The 14 bedrooms at Maister Lodge, and the unit’s formerly ‘tired, drab, and somewhat institutional’ communal and living spaces, have been extensively remodelled using patient-focused dementia-friendly design principles, resulting in a more modern, spacious, light, and airy environment, as The Network’s editor, Jonathan Baillie, reports.

The project to fully refurbish and considerably modernise the bedrooms, bathrooms, and communal/circulation spaces at Maister Lodge in Hull’s Middlesex Road was completed on time and on budget by Yorkshire-based contractor, Sewell Group, in early July 2018, the remodelling having only started the previous December. During the work – which involved some demolition – patients and staff moved to Dove House, a local hospice with whose management team the Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust – which runs Maister Lodge – has an excellent relationship. While the hospice provided a comfortable temporary home, Jo Inglis, the charge nurse at Maister Lodge, who I met up withat the unit, along with the lead architect on the ‘refurb’ project, Alex Caruso, said staff and patients had been excited to move back into their new accommodation on the completion of a project which has had a ‘genuinely transformative’ impact on the 1980s-built inpatient facilities. 

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