Range

We manufacture the full range of furniture required to fit out any Nursing Home.

Our seating includes key items like Lounge Chairs, Tubs, Dining Chairs, and Sofas but also specialist Nursing Furniture and Recliners.

Our range of bedroom cabinet furniture goes from our budget Lugano II Range, through the stylish Livorno, the Geneva, with vinyl wrapped doors and the retro Manhattan with coloured inset doors.

Our Lounge cabinet furniture includes Livorno and Retro Manhattan.

We cater for dementia developments with the Lugano Dementia range of bedroom cabinet furniture Lugano Dementia while the Manhattan Range of cabinet furniture and Manhattan Tables combined with models such as our Sandray is ideal for reminiscence rooms.

Other special ranges include our Como range of bedroom furniture and our Extreme ranges of Tables and Extreme Seating for Mental Health schemes or when particularly robust furniture is required.

Finally, please take a look at our extensive range of dining and coffee tables.

An overview of the product range can be found on the products page of the website.

Manufacturing

The cabinet furniture is manufactured from high grade MF MDF and MFC. Tops are either vinyl wrapped or have polished or banded edges.

Our nursing home chairs are manufactured from air or kiln dried European hard woods from sustainable sources. Mostly this is beech, but we also use ash, sycamore and birch.

Upholstered chair frames are constructed using glued, screwed and dowelled components while show wood frames use comb and mortice & tenon joints for strength.

Bespoke

Bespoke nursing home furniture is available in both seating and in cabinet products. We are happy to produce furniture from a customer's drawing or sketch for large projects.

Altering the dimensions of a product is the most common customisation of nursing home bedroom furniture. This enables a home owner to make the most of the space in the room. We can also accommodate using colour finishes outside our standard range on large schemes while handles can be changed at a minimum of additional cost.

We are also happy to modify any of our existing range of nursing home chairs to suit a customer's particular requirement. On chairs, changes in leg type, foam or fibre specification, lumbar support, stapling and seat height are all easily carried out at a minimum of additional cost and for products in small quantities

Comfort

We supply most nursing home chairs at a seat height of 460mm, but 410 and 510mm seat heights are available on most chairs. A chair that is too low for a resident will be difficult to get out of, while one that is too high will be difficult to get into and uncomfortable to sit in. It's often a good idea to buy chairs with a range of seat heights and upholster them in different fabrics so that the residents and staff have a simple visual clue as to which chair to go to for the correct seat height for them.

The other critical factor in the comfort of nursing home chairs is the arrangement of the back. Ideally the seat depth should be short enough for the resident to sit up against the back of the seat without extra cushions. Lumbar support helps produce a good, comfortable sitting position and is available either as standard or an optional extra in all our chairs. Ask our sales office for further information.

The rake of the back is also important. A rake that is too inclined makes it difficult to get out of the chair. A rake that is too steep makes the nursing home chair uncomfortable. All our chairs are designed with this in mind to combine comfort with accessibility.

Wood Shades & Polishing

Most nursing home chairs are manufactured in light coloured hard woods so are stained and polished to give them the correct finish. We produce 6 standard wood shades – natural, light oak, beech, teak, walnut and dark mahogany - by staining the wood prior to polishing. We can also stain the wood to match an existing sample provided by the customer. This colour matching service incurs a small additional charge per colour matched. So if only one matched colour is required on an order only one charge will be made regardless of how many chairs are needed in that colour on that order.

We use an anti-microbial polish called Medicote on all our furniture. This resists the spread of infection in a nursing home environment.

Our polishing system meets severe contract standard as defined by BS6250, making the polish highly resistant to chipping. This is an important factor in the furniture looking good over time, particularly where a dark stain has been used and any chipping reveals the lighter wood underneath.

Quality

One thing to look out for when buying nursing home furniture is whether the furniture has had any strength and stability testing carried out. The Furniture Industry Research Association (FIRA) is the main test body in this area in the UK and tests nursing home chairs to BS EN 15373:2007, bedroom cabinet furniture to BS 4875-7/4 and tables to BS EN 15372/2. Craftwork has carried out representative testing on all types of furniture against this standard.

Another thing when buying nursing home furniture is to find whether the supplier has a good quality control system. The first step on this is generally the ISO 9000 : 2015 which Craftwork holds for the 'design, manufacture and supply of fine contract furniture'. Our quality credentials are further enhanced by the 100% inspection carried out by a dedicated quality control inspector on all furniture before it leaves the factory. We deliver on our own transport to ensure no damage occurs during delivery.

Fabrics

Customers can choose either a fabric or a vinyl to cover their nursing home chairs. Vinyls are generally manufactured in PVC, often with a PU coating, to give them a softer feel. Fabrics for nursing home chairs are generally polyester, manufactured with a waterproof backing. Both fabrics and vinyls are normally available with a range of propriety anti-bacterial / fungal / microbial coatings.

When it comes to making a choice, vinyl is easier to clean and harder wearing than fabric but looks more institutional. Faux leathers provide the performance of a vinyl but are more homely looking. Modern healthcare fabrics come in a wide range of modern designs and are back coated to make them waterproof. All healthcare vinyls and fabrics will eventually let standing water soak through them but are waterproof for relatively short wetting. It is worth bearing in mind that even if the chair is made from a waterproof fabric, seams will not be fully waterproof.

Most nursing home chairs are manufactured to order with the customer choosing which fabric the chair is covered in. Craftwork, like many manufacturers bases its pricing on a number of fabric bands. Our sales office can provide swatch packs of a range of fabrics designed for the healthcare sector. These are clearly labelled with the price band they fall into. Alternatively, many fabric companies have excellent websites where the fabric choice can be viewed on line. Links to some of our suppliers can be found on the fabric section of the website.

Fire Regulations

Under BS7176 most public areas are classed as medium hazard and require furniture that has been tested under BS5852 to 'crib 5' fire retardancy. All our nursing home furniture complies with this requirement and is clearly labeled as suitable for medium hazard areas.

Sometimes the fire officer for a building will ask to see furniture fire certification as part of his inspection. In this case we are very happy to provide full certification of fabrics and foams.

Some 'public' areas, most notably prisons, are classed as high hazard under BS7176 and require 'crib 7' furniture. We are able to provide furniture to this increased standard.