ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN
Liverpool cancer centre will offer ‘pioneering treatment’
A major new hospital that will transform cancer care in a region that is one of the worst affected nationally by the disease opened its doors in the heart of Liverpool last June. The 11-storey Clatterbridge Cancer Centre Liverpool will deliver highly specialist care – including ‘pioneering immunotherapy and the most advanced forms of radiotherapy’ – to 2.4 million people in Cheshire and Merseyside, and those in surrounding areas, where people are more likely to develop cancer than almost anywhere else in the country. Ged Couser, Architect Principal at BDP, the architect project director for the project, Emma Lepley, architect at BDP, and Design Team leader at handover, and Tim Holliday, managing director of professional project management consultancy, CCL Solutions, report.
The development of Liverpool’s first specialist cancer hospital is part of a £162 m investment that also includes significant refurbishment at The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre’s Wirral site. The new hospital has achieved a BREEAM Excellent rating for sustainability. It was designed by leading global architects, BDP, who also designed Alder Hey Children’s Hospital. The project was managed by PropCare, a wholly- owned subsidiary of The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre. The main contractor was Laing O’Rourke, and the building was design engineered by AECOM, with the Trust’s project management provided by CCL Solutions.
Flexibility, patient choice, dignity, and access to high quality internal and external spaces, were the overarching objectives of the brief, with a great deal of consideration for streamlining processes for staff. Staff and patient representatives were included in the design process throughout.
Clinical services
BDP met the brief by carefully considering the adjacencies and location of departments within the building, designing the building to step back in profile at its upper levels, creating external terraced space for wards and the chemotherapy floor. The terraces have spectacular panoramic views across Liverpool, giving staff, patients, and visitors alike access to external landscaping and fresh air, usually accessed through group social spaces.
The 100 per cent single bedrooms with en-suite provision afford all patients privacy, while the large glazed panels in the doors ensure that staff have good observation into the rooms. Bedrooms enjoy full height glazing along the unitised façade, with the layout designed to ensure that patients have a view out from their beds.
The Chemotherapy Department is at The 11-storey Clatterbridge Cancer Centre Liverpool will deliver ‘highly specialist care’.
the penultimate level of the building, and comprises an open plan space with stunning views across the city. Every patient has a dedicated treatment bay, separated by a purpose-designed screen complete with sockets and Wi-Fi connection, offering the choice as to whether to maintain privacy or interact with others. Family and friends accompanying a patient are welcome to use the central break-out area to relax.
Atria aid wayfinding
Two atria aid intuitive wayfinding, allowing daylight to permeate the plan, penetrating deep into the radiotherapy waiting area at semi-basement level and the main entrance level. The set-back cantilever over the entrance creates a covered winter garden. The garden is lined with natural limestone gabions, and filled with natural timber landscape planters, giving staff, patients, and visitors, access to nature in an urban context. This expansion of services in the region will ensure that the NHS is well placed to meet the rising incidence of cancer as
people live longer. In the immediate term, it is also enabling the NHS to resume normal clinical activity post-COVID-19, by providing protected facilities for people with cancer – many of whom are particularly at risk if they catch the virus – as well as releasing capacity in other hospitals in the region.
The new hospital brings pioneering cancer treatment closer to communities that are among the most disadvantaged and most at risk of developing the disease during their lifetime. It means significantly shorter journey times for the majority of patients, including those from Knowsley, which has the second highest incidence of cancer in England. At a regional level, cancer incidence in Cheshire and Merseyside is the third highest in England, while deaths from cancer are 76 per cent above the European average.
Eight years in the making The opening of Clatterbridge Cancer Centre – Liverpool is the culmination of plans that have been eight years in the making. Until now, Cheshire and
January 2021 Health Estate Journal 23
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64
