HEALTHCARE CONSTRUCTION
MMC utilised to build new James Paget ‘concept ward’
A new 28-bedded ‘concept ward’ combining single-bedded en-suite rooms with four-bed bays, built by Health Spaces at Great Yarmouth’s James Paget University Hospital, and officially opened on 27 May this year, will be used both to house patients while RAAC panel remediation is undertaken on parts of the hospital estate, and to enable the James Paget University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to evaluate the ‘pros and cons’ of single-bedded rooms versus multi-bed patient accommodation as it plans for a new hospital on the site. HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie, reports.
The construction of the new modular- built ward at the James Paget University Hospital began last October – with preliminary groundworks on the chosen location to the rear of the existing hospital. This included site surveys and a check for unexploded bombs, since Great Yarmouth and the surrounding area were heavily bombed during World War II. Thanks to the use of offsite Modern Methods of Construction, with the modules assembled in a controlled factory environment in East Yorkshire, and delivered to site with the building fabric 80% complete (with some first-fix M&E works also competed), the new single-storey ward block’s creation progressed extremely fast. The new facility, which has received a BREEAM ‘Excellent’ rating at Design Stage (with the same rating anticipated for Construction), was handed over on schedule to the James Paget University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust by Health Spaces – who also designed it, in conjunction with the Trust – in late May this year, with the first patients admitted on 8 June. Officially opened by NHS Chief Nursing Officer for England, Dame Ruth May, on 27 May, the ward is needed to provide decant space while some of the hospital’s existing wards undergo remedial work. In particular, the roof of a number of wards incorporates RAAC – or reinforced autoclaved aerated – planks – a form of lightweight concrete panels widely used in
the mid-1960s and mid-1970s, which have suffered failures. As a result, Government guidance has set out a series of measures for organisations including operators of NHS hospitals and schools whose buildings may incorporate the panels to ensure that, where they are present, they are identified, evaluated for structural integrity, and – where necessary – failsafe supports are installed.
Forty-year anniversary in 2022 The James Paget University Hospital, at Gorleston-on-Sea, serves the Great Yarmouth and Waveney area. It was formally opened in July 1982, but had been receiving patients since 21 December 1981, when the first emergency cases were accepted, and outpatient clinics started. The hospital was named after Great Yarmouth-born surgeon to Queen Victoria, Sir James Paget. As well as, in his lifetime, serving as President of the Royal College of Surgeons in England, a Fellow of the Royal Society, and Vice-Chancellor of London University, he is widely regarded as the father of British pathology. He was also the first to describe a number of medical conditions, including Paget’s disease of bone (named after him), and compression of the median nerve, known today as ‘carpal tunnel syndrome’. Parts of the hospital are now showing signs of age, and in 2020 it was announced that the Trust would receive
national funding through the Department of Health and Social Care to explore all options for the construction of a new hospital on the site, as part of the Government’s Health Infrastructure Plan. In consultation with the Trust, the New Hospital Design Team at Penoyre & Prasad developed a masterplan based around the creation of a healthcare ‘campus’ for the Strategic Outline Case (SOC). In the meantime, updating of parts of the main hospital building is underway due to plans for its continued use until 2030 – with a particular focus on achieving the RAAC failsafe works. Reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete planks feature in the roof of most of the buildings, including the wards. This work necessitates a phased decanting of the wards so the RAAC failsafe work can take place without disrupting care. The new 28-bedded ‘concept ward’ building will be used to accommodate patients from each ward in turn during this refurbishment, but, as I discovered when I spoke recently with the hospital’s Chief Nurse, Paul Morris – who has led the project for the Trust on the clinical side – the new ward block will also serve a second, very important purpose.
A flexible decant space He explained: “The major project driver was to provide us with a facility to accommodate a variety of patients in while we empty wards so that the remedial
An external ‘visual’ showing the concept ward and garden space on the ground floor, and the plant deck on the first. August 2023 Health Estate Journal 47
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