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Hope you’ve been soaking up some Vitamin D-boosting daylight (in the shade if you can) – we’ve just passed the longest day of the year, so I’m making sure my batteries are full.
This week I’m celebrating Glad to Care week
This week-long celebration puts the spotlight on the millions of healthcare staff worldwide – over 780,000 in the UK alone, showing up for our loved ones every day in some of the lowest-paid, yet most critical and demanding jobs in our society – Number of people working in care homes, How many care staff per resident are required in care homes?
Care workers pay a heavy price for their dedication as they face one of the highest risks of occupational safety and health issues according to the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work – Health and social care workers suffer widespread occupational safety and health issues.
So perhaps it’s not surprising that the sector is struggling to attract and keep staff, with over one in ten jobs vacant in London, compounding the problem of overwork and burnout – Investigating healthcare workforce recruitment and retention: a mixed-methods study protocol, Social care 360: workforce and carers.
So it’s great to see a whole week of tailored online activities for care workers, from a live workout on Motivation Monday to chair-based ballet on Feel-Good Friday.
So, how can lighting help?
Perhaps it’s time to take a leaf from the office playbook, where billions are invested in designs to earn the commute. According to a Harvard Business Review survey of over 1,600 employees, two-thirds of respondents said that a workplace focused on their health and well-being would make them more likely to accept a new job or keep the job they have.
Here are three simple tips:
Windows for wellbeing – and the waistline
What matters most? air quality and natural light are top of the list – Survey: What Employees Want Most from Their Workspaces. Nurses are no different, as one study found that workstations near windows recorded more laughter and social interaction and lower blood pressure than those without access to views – even with the same light levels – The Impact of Windows and Daylight on Acute-Care Nurses’ Physiological, Psychological, and Behavioral Health.
Access to a view of nature will help with healthy food choices, too, a common issue for this group who are at higher than average risk of being overweight – Obesity prevalence among healthcare professionals in England: a cross-sectional study using the Health Survey for England, Overweight people more likely to take sick leave, European study finds.
A window is best, but photographs or even images projected on the wall can encourage healthy choices and reduce food waste, perhaps because these visual cues increase ‘biospheric values’ or a sense of being at one with nature – Restaurant customers’ food leftover reduction intention derived from nature connection and biospheric values: A comparison between men and women.
Control for safety and comfort
The HBR study also pointed to the critical role of personal control in satisfaction, with employees voting by a margin of 42% to 28%, for the ability to personalize their work environment over unlimited vacation. Temperature came top of parameters to control, but lighting came next, with one-third opting to control their overhead and desk lighting, along with natural light.
If light levels are important for office workers, they’re critical for busy nurses struggling to read the small print on medication packaging. Bright task lighting significantly reduced harmful medical errors in one study in an Intensive Care Unit – The Effect of Blue-Enriched Lighting on Medical Error Rate in a University Hospital ICU, while care teams in a residential care home were clear that the ability to adjust light levels to suit the task and time of day was far preferable to standard ‘static’ lighting. It not only improved their ability to care for patients but was judged to be more visually comfortable too – Perceived visual comfort and usefulness of a circadian lighting system implemented at a nursing home.
Cycled lighting for sleep
The typical office is only operational during daylight hours, but surprisingly, lighting that mimics the day-night cycle can improve quality of sleep by delivering enough light in the morning to set the body clock – Optimized office lighting advances melatonin phase and peripheral heat loss prior bedtime. Circadian entrainment affects every dimension of physical and mental health, from heart disease and fertility to stress, mood and memory. Applied to the 24-7 residential care home environment, the benefits of this approach are even more evident. Listen to award-winning employers Ed Russell and David Poxton in our recent event talking about their staff’s enthusiastic response to a circadian-aware approach to lighting – Innovators in Healthcare April 2025.
So, I’ll be celebrating Glad to Care Week – and doing everything I can to make sure these remarkable people get the lighting they deserve.
Three take-aways and a question from a very hot Care Innovations Summit last week
The heartfelt opening remarks by TV presenter Sameena Ali-Khan set the tone for the day, the ‘caring for the carer’ keynote by Jermaine Harris got a room-full of strangers up on dancing and chatting – and gasping as he walked across broken glass. Note to self – next time I organise a conference, get a motivational speaker to warm up the room.
Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain …
My way of remembering the colours in the rainbow (Red, orange, yellow, green, blue violet…)
I use a similar technique called the memory castle to remember the main points in a talk or a presentation like the one on neuroatchitecture I’ll deliver in Valencia today.
What’s that got to do with light?
Visual information is easier to remember than abstract facts as it can encode so much more.
I anchor the first point of a presentation to the front door of my flat and add lighting in my minds’ eye to make it more vivid and specific. The next point is anchored to the coat hooks just inside the door – there I add coloured hats or a bag linked to the story I’m telling.
Interestingly, when you’re retrieving a ‘schematic’ memory – like my front door – rather than an episodic memory (like the time you walked through the door) you activate high-level visual processing in your brain – similiar to the second stage of seeing – Feedback signals in visual cortex during episodic and schematic memory retrieval and their potential implications for aphantasia.
These new discoveries are shining a fascinating light on memory loss and the phenomenon of aphantasia, suggesting that there is a difference in the way the ‘what’ (schematic) and the ‘where’ pathways are affected in different neurological conditions.
Count down to Whitstable – timing is everything
Will have clocked up 15 miles so far this week and acutely aware of the difference in performance at different times of the day. I’ve learnt from bitter experience that I’m much more likely to get out on the road in the morning before the day takes over – but it’s much better for my knees if I set off in the afternoon – most world records are beaten at around 4pm.
It’s more important right now to get the distance under my belt – so give me a wave if you see me out at crack of dawn.