We will soon see the back of the bottom-exposing hospital gown.

The NHS has commissioned fashion designer Ben de Lisi to design a new range of hospital wear, putting paid to the bottom-exposing traditional hospital gown.

Alongside other top British designers and architects, de Lisi is working with the UK’s National Health Service to improve the experience of patients in hospital.

The new project, entitled ‘Design for Patient Dignity’, was created by the Department of Health and the Design Council, and has led to the appointment of six teams of leading UK product, interiors, fashion and systems designers, architects and manufacturers.

More than sixty design teams originally applied for the challenge, and were judged by a panel of the UK’s most respected experts in design, patient care, hospital management and nursing.

The chosen six are working on a range of briefs that will help to improve the hospital environment and patient experience, following research into the issues that are faced in today’s hospitals.

The initiatives will focus on new ward layouts, new products which help provide greater privacy for patients within the ward, more dignified toileting and washing facilities, new ways of improving the physical and emotional security of patients being transferred within hospitals, and finally the new patient gowns which will improve patient dignity.

The designs by Ben de Lisi and industry supplier Silvereed will include a gown, pyjama bottoms, a “polar fleece wrap” and slippers, and will be put on show by the Design Council next month, and trialed in a London hospital.

They will cater for differences in patient size, as well as cultural and religious preferences and are appropriate for a range of activities including sleeping, resting, journeys to and from the toilet/bathroom and leaving the ward.

The NHS has admitted that the old gowns, which provided convenient access for surgery or to administer injections, are an unnecessary humiliation.

Prototypes of all the solutions will be unveiled in March 2010, with the aim of introducing the designs into hospitals by early 2011.

Ann Keen, Health Minister, commented on the programme: “As a nurse, I know that patients expect and deserve not only high quality, safe and effective care, but a dignified experience when they go into hospital.

“We want to ensure that patients’ experience of the NHS goes from good to great and that is why we are looking to improve privacy and dignity for patients in innovative ways.”

Now these initiatives are all very well, but are they truly core to our health service? Are designer hospital gowns really that necessary? Apparently the North Bristol NHS Trust has already designed and developed its own alternative – a wraparound garment which ties up at the sides. They already have 1000 of these, and didn’t need a top fashion designer to do the job.

Reports suggest that each of the six design teams in the ‘Design for Patient Dignity’ programme were entitled to up to £25,000 each in grants. Was this just to come up with the solutions? If so, what is the UK government thinking? In what world do we work hard and pay our taxes if only to pay a top international designer to create a basic hospital gown that any half-witted person with a pencil and paper could have knocked up?

Why didn’t the NHS launch a student design competition – get the ideas for free, raise awareness of the issues faced in our health service, and teach those students how to design for function and public service?

What do you think?