INTERVIEW
Space reinvented: a refurbishment journey
At Healthcare Estates 2025, Tony Sinden, enterprise account manager – Northern Europe at Honeywell, interviewed Simon Boundy, head of healthcare, and architectural assistant Jakub Raspl, both of Stride Treglown Architects, winners of the 2025 Healthcare Estates Refurbishment Project Of The Year Award. They discussed the methodology behind – and challenges presented by – an extensive refurbishment project at Bigbury Orthopaedic Surgical Suite for University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust that involved the relocation of non-clinical services while minimising disruption to core services.
Tony Sinden: What was the vision behind the project and how did it evolve? Simon Boundy: We’ve been working with University Hospitals Plymouth for about 20 years, so we understand their estate. We developed their strategic development plan, site development plan, effective development control plan. One of the projects which came out of that strategic plan was the relocation of non-clinical services, wherever possible, off the acute site and maximising the use of the acute site for core clinical services – theatres, intensive care, inpatients, etc. So this project – just to give an overview – it’s right at the core of the existing hospital, which was built in the late 70s. It’s relocating what were the main hospital kitchens to an off-site location – so that’s lower cost for the trust – and transforming that space into an operating theatre suite. That’s part of an ongoing programme where we’re looking to move, long-term, pathology, kitchen, sterile services, off-site – all those functions which absolutely don’t have to be on the acute site. It reduces congestion on the site, and frees up space for those core clinical services.
Obviously, you had some key challenges. How did you overcome them? Jakub Raspl: The biggest challenge was fitting such a large, equipment-heavy suite into a really constrained space. We were right between live operating theatres and the main loading bay for the hospital, so fitting that in while keeping the hospital operational around it was a big challenge, and that required a lot of coordination and collaboration with the design team, stakeholders, and the estate team to make sure that we could build this while keeping everything around it still working. Another challenge were the spatial constraints of the site. It wasn’t originally built to house clinical facilities. So, we had to carefully plan the layout and work with stakeholders to identify what was critical for them, where they could make compromises, where we could make compromises, and how to put all this together in such a small space.
What positive impact has it had on the hospital and the environment? JR: It’s had really good impact on the actual users. We
had really good feedback and testimonials from the users saying they really enjoyed the space. And it actually enabled what the Trust wanted, which was to decrease waiting times and enable this clinical operation within the main building. SB: We looked at a number of options for providing the additional theatre capacity, and one of the options would have been a modular solution or a standalone solution on one of the car parks. But the important thing was that long- term master plan – so we’re not sterilising external space, taking up car parking space, which is at an absolute premium on the site, in common with most hospitals.
Interviewer Tony Sinden, far left, with Jakub Raspl (centre) and Simon Boundy.
One of the projects which came out of the strategic plan was the relocation of non-clinical services, wherever possible, off the acute site and maximising the use of the acute site for core clinical services.
April 2026 Health Estate Journal 23
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