About the Project

This project seeks to understand the current use of disposable single-use theatre caps and to co-design and develop a more eco-friendly and reusable theatre cap. The NHS Golden Jubilee National Hospital throws away nearly 200,000 disposable single use theatre caps every year. Introducing eco-friendly, reusable theatre caps has the potential to eliminate waste and associated costs. Design HOPES researchers in collaboration with NHS Golden Jubilee staff have, through a series of extensive co-design workshops, developed a collection of reusable theatre caps that are unique to each member of staff displaying their name and role. This benefits significantly patient safety and has been proven to positively impact staff communication, incident management and staff identification.

Initiated in January 2023 (before the start of Design HOPES), the project was led by Gareth Adkins, Director of Quality, Innovation, and People at NHS Golden Jubilee. The NHS Golden Jubilee hospital were grappling with the problem of introducing personalised reusable theatre caps that would improve both patient safety and person-centred care. Design HOPES researchers initiated and conducted a series of co-design workshops with NHS Golden Jubilee staff (including nurses, surgeons, anaesthetists, and others) and have utilised a series of design research methods including cultural probes, interviews, and design prototyping. A range of Design HOPES reusable theatre caps are being manufactured in Scotland to gauge user feedback in advance of a much larger production run across several NHS Scotland boards later this year.

This project involves the co-design of reusable theatre caps that will have significant environmental benefits over the existing disposable single-use ones. Introducing these reusable theatre caps will eliminate waste and associated environmental and economic costs of waste management. Moreover, reusable theatre caps are unique to each member of staff displaying the staff member’s name and hospital role, which will increase patient safety and is proven to positively impact communication, incident management and staff identification.