HEALTHCARE ESTATES 2016
Alder Hey Innovation Hub’s pioneering work
Autumn 2015 saw the new Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool open its doors. Believed to be Europe’s first children’s hospital built within a parkland setting, the new ‘Alder Hey in the Park’ is particularly striking externally, with three distinctive ‘fingers’ housing the wards bordered by extensive greenery, and the buildings topped by green undulating roofs. Giving the keynote speech on the first day of last October’s Healthcare Estates 2016 conference, David Powell, project director for the hospital, and executive lead for its innovation programme, explained how the innovation that made such an impact in creating the new facility has continued since it opened, with a wealth of activities designed both to improve the experience of young patients and foster medical advances being championed and taken forward by a new ‘Innovation Hub’.
Designed by architects, landscape architects, and interior designers, BDP, and built by Laing O’Rourke (HEJ – September 2015), the new 270-bedded Alder Hey Children’s Hospital was itself innovatively conceived, with extensive input into the design from the young people who would use it. Indeed one of the original drawings from Eleanor Brogan, then aged just 15, impressed both Laing O’Rourke and BDP, and inspired the final design. The hospital – which picked up the New Build Project of the Year Award at last October’s 2016 IHEEM Awards Dinner in Manchester – has won widespread acclaim since it began admitting patients in late 2015. Industry observers and awards judges have complimented both its ground-breaking external design, and the way that a feeling of the outdoors is brought inside. Located in Springfield Park on Liverpool’s northern fringes, the ‘new’ Alder Hey was completed just over a century after the completion of the 1914- built children’s hospital it has replaced. All the inpatient bedrooms, and indeed many other internal spaces, enjoy views of green space or parkland. A full report on the hospital’s design and construction appeared in the September 2015 issue of Health Estate Journal, but – as a brief reminder of some of the key features – seventy-five per cent of the bedrooms are single en suite, with fixed sofa-beds in single bedrooms for parents, and pull- down beds in four-bed bays. Access to play areas, natural light, and striking views of the surrounding parkland, are available wherever possible. Young people and teenagers have dedicated play and relaxation areas, while a strong emphasis on ‘next generation technology’ is, for instance, seeing extensive use made of a new electronic patient record system (from US supplier, Meditech), and dispensing of medicines by a robotic pharmacy.
professional background. He explained that David Powell had over 30 years’ NHS experience, having joined the Alder Hey Board as development director in December 2012. While a key part of his role is as project director for the new Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, he is also executive lead for Alder Hey’s innovation programme. Prior to joining Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust, he held development director posts in Bristol and London, overseeing new hospital build programmes including the new Central Middlesex Hospital, the Bristol Laboratory/Research complex, and Bristol Southmead Hospital. He has a History degree from Manchester University, and is a qualified accountant.
David Powell, project director for the Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool, and executive lead for the innovation programme there.
Innovations taken forward Before David Powell began his Healthcare Estates 2016 conference address in a Day One keynote in which he both explained how youngsters’ views had been widely sought, and subsequently reflected, in the hospital’s’ design, and focused on the some of the innovation taken forward since it opened, Chris Northey, IHEEM’s President for the preceding two years (he handed over to new President, the DH’s Peter Sellars, at IHEEM’s 2016 AGM later the same day), introduced the Alder Hey speaker with a little information on his
Starting to ‘gaze at stars’ David Powell explained that he had a ‘history’ of working on new hospital construction projects, although in the first half of his career he had worked as a financial director and as an operational director in the health service. For ‘the past 20 years or so’, however, he had been employed on new hospital projects. He told delegates: “When you get involved in new hospitals, the first thing that strikes you is that you start gazing at stars. These things happen so rarely; every 100 years or so you get a new hospital; they take nine or 10 years to plan and complete, and are incredibly complex. You start looking at what the opportunities are, and at what innovations you could bring in. You also get this massive ball of energy with new hospitals, because you get a lot of different people – from designers, doctors, and nurses, to the public – seeing a fantastic opportunity to get involved in something rare and important; asking ‘What we can do with this?’
April 2017 Health Estate Journal 37
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