There is a direct correlation between person-centred care and the use of a care home’s garden, according to garden designer Debbie Carroll from Step Change Design. “Fearful attitudes to risk effectively cap the use of outside spaces in care homes, while advanced care culture practices and truly active engagement outside go hand in hand,” she said, recalling a care home that locked the doors to its garden because of a wonky paving slab instead of repairing it. In another case the garden remained closed because a resident had suffered a mishap there five years earlier. “It turned out to be an incident related to the resident’s ailment, not to the garden at all,” Carroll added. “The garden is a mirror of what your care culture is.”
