Designing for Wellbeing:
Creating Safer, More Supportive Mental Health Environments
Point 5 Plus Ltd was founded with a clear purpose: to create products that genuinely improve safety, dignity, and wellbeing within mental health and secure care environments.
Although the company itself is new, it is built upon the extensive sector-specific experience of its founder, David Falkingham, who has spent nearly two decades working closely with NHS Trusts, clinicians, estates teams, architects, and service users across the UK.
This experience forms the foundation of Point 5 Plus and influences every conversation, every product concept, and every solution the company develops.
The Evolution of Mental Health Design
Over the last two decades, mental health environments have evolved significantly.
Historically, many products and spaces focused heavily on durability and anti-ligature performance alone. While these elements remain essential, the sector has increasingly recognised the importance of creating environments that also feel calm, supportive, and therapeutic.
Modern healthcare environments are now designed with greater consideration for:
- Service-user wellbeing
- De-escalation and calming spaces
- Dignity and independence
- Staff safety and operational efficiency
- Long-term durability and maintainability
This shift has encouraged a more balanced approach to product design, one that considers both physical safety and emotional wellbeing.
Experience That Shapes Better Design
Point 5 Plus Ltd was founded on nearly two decades of sector-specific experience working alongside healthcare providers, estates teams, clinicians, contractors, and manufacturers within mental health and secure care environments.
This experience has helped shape a practical understanding of the challenges faced across the sector, from reducing environmental risk to supporting safer operational practices and creating more therapeutic spaces.
Every product and solution is approached with careful consideration of how it will function within real healthcare environments and how it may affect the people who use those spaces every day.
Listening First, Designing Second
One of the biggest changes in the sector, and a core principle at Point 5 Plus, is the commitment to listening.
Today, the company works in partnership with:
- Service users, whose lived experience guides what feels safe, respectful, and empowering
- Co-producing with sector-leading companies, driving innovative new products for safer environments
- Clinical staff, who understand the realities of day-to-day care
- Estates and facilities teams, who know what works long-term
- Architects and designers, who shape therapeutic environments
This co-production approach ensures that products are not only technically robust, but also emotionally intelligent and practical.
Listening has revealed insights that traditional design processes often overlook — how a product’s shape can reduce anxiety, how a hinge can influence behaviour, and how a surface finish can support de-escalation.
Safety Without Compromising Environment
Safety-led design should not result in spaces that feel cold, institutional, or restrictive.
Modern anti-ligature and secure products are increasingly being developed to blend safety performance with softer forms, improved aesthetics, and more considered user experiences.
At Point 5 Plus, our design philosophy focuses on creating products that are:
- Safe and robust
- Practical and reliable
- Respectful and unobtrusive
- Suitable for therapeutic environments
- Designed for long-term use within demanding settings
The goal is not simply to reduce risk, but to help contribute to environments that support wellbeing, recovery, and safer care overall.
Supporting Safer Futures
As healthcare environments continue to evolve, Point 5 Plus Ltd remains committed to supporting safer, more thoughtful, and more effective design within the mental health sector.
By combining practical experience, collaboration, and innovation, we aim to contribute to environments where both safety and wellbeing remain the priority.