Imaginative designs for therapeutic settings

With several ‘innovative’ products launched at May’s Design in Mental Health 2019 exhibition, and its interior design expertise significantly boosted by last year’s recruitment of a new manager for Interior Solutions Development, the brand is going through a busy time. The Network’s editor, Jonathan Baillie, reports.

Teal was acquired by The Senator Group in 2009. Its Lower Darwen headquarters in Lancashire houses a sizeable factory, complemented by modern machinery, a warehouse, and offices housing a Design Department, R&D personnel, and a Customer Services Support team. Having originally predominantly produced furniture for acute healthcare settings, Teal has subsequently diversified into designing, developing, and manufacturing, specialist furniture for mental healthcare settings under its ‘LifeCare’ brand. Teal HealthCare and Teal LifeCare were later joined by a third ‘brand’, Teal Living, which offers ‘design-led care home furniture and turnkey solutions’. 

It was mainly to discuss some of the recent developments at Teal LifeCare – which has launched a number of new products this year – that I had travelled to the Lower Darwen showroom to meet the division’s Marketing manager, Nigel Davis, and Interior Solutions Development manager, Vicky Taylor. While Nigel Davis has been with Teal for almost a decade, Vicky Taylor only joined in February 2018, having previously spent 14 years at Chorley-based architect, Gilling Dod, latterly as an associate interior designer. The practice is well-known for its mental healthcare design expertise, and while there she became familiar with furniture from many of the leading suppliers, bringing with her to Teal both considerable interior design expertise, and a strong insight into how to appropriately furnish a broad spectrum of mental health facilities.