HOSPITAL wards containing only four beds facing a peaceful wall-long aquarium filled with exotic fish sound the stuff of fantasy, but they could become reality if the vision of a team of Newcastle architects is realised.

Jane Darbyshire and David Kendall Limited (JDDK) beat off nationwide competition to design how the hospitals of the future should look.

The contract is part of the Healthy Hospitals Campaign established by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment

The campaign, run in collaboration with the Royal College of Nursing, NHS Estates, The Nuffield Trust, The Kings Fund, The Design Council and the Future Healthcare Network, was launched on Monday.

Four teams were asked to design aspects of future hospitals.

All the designs can be seen at www.healthyhospitals.org.uk

Ian Clarke, director of JDDK, said: "The overriding design principle behind all our work to date has been to provide a truly supportive environment to help reduce patient stress, as being treated in hospital is often a challenging life event, and visitors and staff are not exempt from the impact of this.

"If well designed hospitals help to speed recovery, reduce expenditure on medical care and drugs and get people back to work, as the research is suggesting, then it is obviously a very effective investment."