Evaluation

After two years Andrew Moore and his staff team, which now includes two additional dentists and a hygienist, remain enthusiastic about the benefits of Mitzman's design philosophy and its practical implementation at the Chelmsford clinic. So, it appears do patients whose numbers are growing by some 40 a month, mainly as a result of personal recommendations.

Nowhere perhaps in everyday healthcare does the 'white coat syndrome' or patient anxiety, run higher than at the dentist. The Advance Dental Clinic with its relaxed atmosphere, which includes a coffee machine in the waiting area and glimpses of sky from the dentist's chair, sets out to put patients at ease.

The building is a model of what can be achieved despite limitations of space and some tight planning restrictions. The neat precision of the stack-bonded brickwork, the floor-to-ceiling front windows, the exuberant use of white paint, the light wooden flooring in the public spaces all seek to defy what could so easily have been restraints. The strict approach to hygiene is a model which might usefully be considered, along with patient safety, as an integral part of the healthcare design process.