Silentia, offer a range of hard surface, folding privacy screens that can be wall-mounted in place of existing curtains. These screens take up little wall space and can be easily and quickly cleaned in situ. Cleaning can be integrated seamlessly with the hospital’s standard cleaning routines, making infection control much easier to manage.  

A good quality screen will have a much smaller impact on the environment as it will have a longer lifespan and can be maintained and reused. Silentia screens, for example, have a proven lifetime of over 10 years and have been in continuous use in some hospitals for much longer than that as they have been designed to be repaired and reused.

Projects with the NHS

Silentia has previously worked to provide NHS Trusts with sustainable screen alternatives, including at Scotland’s Jubilee National Hospital where 157 screens were provided.

Pull-around curtains were previously used to screen off the door for privacy while doctors or nursing staff were in attendance or visitors were present at the hospital. Yet the curtains presented their own problems, as senior manager of infection prevention and control Robert Gray told Hospital Bulletin: “We were looking for an alternative to curtains, something easy to clean and that would reduce laundry costs.”

“With curtains you’ve got the hassle of removing them and the cost of cleaning. Before, we had three different sizes of curtains per ward and spares.”

Enter Silentia screens - a highly flexible alternative that gives privacy and dignity, with an easy to clean and highly manoeuvrable solution.

“Patients are amazed at the level of cleanliness. We’re almost spoilt to be working here”, added Anne. Some patients like to watch TV late at night. The screens help to keep the noise down. The cleaning teams at Golden Jubilee National Hospital report to infection prevention and control. Housekeeper Mary Filshie explained: “I’ve been at the hospital for ten years and only work on this ward. If the curtains were dirty or had stains, we had to get a porter to take them down, replace them with another curtain, and take the soiled one to the laundry for cleaning. So, it could delay the use of the room and take the porter away from their duties. Now we have the screens we don’t have to get in touch with the porters.”