HEALTHCARE DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION
Future of healthcare design in a post-COVID world
Nick Fairham, Principal at global architecture practice, BDP, which was responsible for drawing up plans for six emergency Nightingale hospitals in England and Wales, looks at the ways in which lessons learnt during the COVID-19 pandemic could inform the way healthcare provision in the UK is designed in future.
The NHS Nightingale Hospital London. The creation of such hospitals in response to COVID-19 illustrated the importance of seamless, collaborative design and decision-making.
With COVID-19 having impacted upon every facet of our healthcare system, it is crucial that we look, as a society, at how we design healthcare buildings going forward. Times of crisis require innovative thinking to tackle often unprecedented challenges, which in turn paves the way for new ideas and ways of working that can shape the future for the better. The COVID pandemic sparked an enormous collaborative effort in the conversion of stadia and conference centres to temporary hospitals, as well as the creation of testing laboratories, right through to many outpatient facilities being delivered ‘virtually’ for the first time. Here at BDP we have identified 10 themes that have emerged as a result of the pandemic, and why we believe these will become more important than ever in designing healthcare buildings that accommodate the new operational realities of a post-COVID-19 era.
1 Pulling the big levers
The creation of the emergency hospitals in response to COVID-19 illustrated the importance of a seamless, collaborative approach to design and decision making. It involved both the military, and private sector organisations, responding together to the national challenge, and successfully delivering both the Nightingale hospitals and testing laboratories incredibly quickly. The Army was also influential throughout
At Southmead Hospital, Bristol, theatres were designed with future flexibility to accommodate interventional radiology or cath lab equipment.
the briefing and design journey, and all stakeholders were focused on the big issues at play, and on making strategic decisions quickly and in the right order. This response to the pandemic is proof that a much faster, stripped back consultation process can work effectively when work needs to be done quickly. We were all on board with the much-used army catchphrase of concentrating on ‘pulling the big levers’ to reach our end- goal.
Building a new hospital or reconfiguring an existing one is an incredibly complex project, which means we need to be even more conscious of making both the big and small decisions at the right time. Equally, it is more important than ever to collaborate closely with clinicians when we are designing healthcare facilities, to ensure that they are fit for purpose. In the case of the Nightingale hospitals, for example, we
worked closely with medical staff to ensure that every bed could be fitted with all the equipment required to treat COVID- 19 patients, and for them to be cared for by dedicated staff in full PPE equipment. It is essential that a collaborative approach and streamlined decision-making are at the forefront of healthcare design.
2 Design for flexibility
The Nightingale hospitals are temporary, so unless the virus disappears, or a 100 per cent effective vaccine is made available, the UK is going to have to get to the point where the NHS can deal with COVID patients alongside traditional healthcare as normal services resume. Against this backdrop, designing healthcare spaces that can be flexible to the changing needs of an area will be more essential than ever. It may be necessary, for example, to consolidate
The staff roof terrace at Southmead Hospital, Bristol. April 2021 Health Estate Journal 33
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