Abstract
Published research has established that noise creates adverse effects on patients and staff in acute clinical areas. While the extent of building insulation in the form of walls and doors is frequently not that critical to patient care, the operational noise produced by actual healthcare activities has much more acute effects on patient and staff wellbeing. Evidence exists to show the genuine benefit that acoustic absorbers can have on staff attitudes, patient care and actual medical outcomes. However the actual implementation of absorptive surfaces to reduce reverberation and operational noise is commonly assumed to be an infection risk due to porosity of the surfaces and absorption is subsequently omitted