CONSTRUCTION
Mott MacDonald worked with the Department for Education as a project integrator on the GenZero initiative to develop a platform design for manufacture and assembly (P-DfMA) approach for schools.
“Australia is a good case study for this,” says Andrew
Parks. “There they spent a lot of time thinking about how you standardise the requirements of the hospital. It has improved the delivery of the construction, and had a significant impact as a result.” Ben Carlisle adds: “The Australians are taking a very digital approach, and have really focused on standards – standard rooms, standard equipment, and standard data sheets – and have mechanisms in place to publish and update them. This allows documents to be submitted electronically, with the design automatically checked against standards for compliance.” Andrew Parks says: “A similar approach to standardised design has also been taken in Denmark, and while that has had mixed results, with certain elements being better than others, there is a lot we can learn from that work too.”
Standardisation’s use in other sectors The use of standardisation by other sectors also creates a knowledge base for healthcare. Andrew Parks points to the use of the product platform approach (see box) to standardisation being used in the UK by the Department for Education on schools, and the Ministry of Justice for new prisons. “The experience from using product platforms for prisons and schools projects tells us that early contractor involvement in the design is critical,” he explains. “The use of the concept in schools also provided the understanding that you can’t design an entire new system in one go; it needs to be done in stages.” Ben Carlisle adds: “The Department for Education also sought to take the market with it, and developed an iterative, open, and collaborative approach. It took the business model forward in steps that capabilities and training in the market could cope with. This was all built on a solid foundation of what actually needs to be in a school, and only evolving those definitions very slowly. “The Ministry of Justice took a slightly different route because it cares about different things – principally security and welfare – so has focused on certain aspects, such as windows, and left other elements to the market to determine.” Analysis undertaken by Mott MacDonald for
the Construction Innovation Hub’s The Value of Platforms in Construction report1
showed that use of product platforms
could translate to a potential saving to government of £1.8 bn a year across social infrastructure. At a project level, that could reduce the cost of a hospital by £147 m.
Delivering a step change Understanding the issues that result in hospital projects being late and over budget helps to underline the benefits that standardisation could bring to such projects. One of the key problems is that each build is treated as a brand new, individual project, and the supply chain has to mobilise each time. With a standardised approach, the supply chain already knows what is wanted, and can build a business around that. “With a platform approach, the trades can do what
they are good at doing, and what changes is the way they go together,” explains Ben Carlisle. “The uncertainty, the risk, and the waste arise because although we know we’re going to have a floor, windows, doors, ventilation, lights, nurse call systems, and gas supplies as the basics, they all get arranged and integrated in a different way each time. While the component parts are pretty similar, because of the design development process, and the influence afforded to a broad range of stakeholders in that process, we end up having to develop solutions differently each time. This makes it hard for the market to learn, invest, and improve.
“Standardisation therefore needs to recognise the
necessity for as much commonality as possible, but as much variability as required too. This changes the way that design is done to make it more ‘modular’, so that stakeholder choice and localisation can be accommodated without changing everything. So, it confines choice to where it is valuable, and minimises change caused by choice. Conversations that are normally repeated on every hospital project are had once, but where localisation is needed, the implications are already understood.”
The operational model However, standardisation extends beyond the build phase, and is about the operational model of the facility too. Andrew Parks says: “Standardisation must also consider the interfaces between clinical, workforce, and the patient, to ensure that best practice is considered, and the scenario tested upfront once, learned from, and tested again, before being validated, so that it can be repeated.” As a result, not only could standardisation reduce initial cost and the operational costs of the healthcare building itself, but it could also improve patient care and outcomes. By starting with a standard design to hospital spaces, combined with an integrated digital system, as well as integrated services in those spaces, staff and patients can
Claire Smith
Claire Smith is managing editor for UK & Europe at Mott MacDonald, and works with technical teams to develop and share editorial content that demonstrates the broad range of expertise and innovation within the business. A geotechnical engineer by training, she spent the first three years of her career designing foundations and slope remediation schemes. For the past 25 years she has combined her love of writing with her engineering knowledge through her work as a construction journalist. Before joining Mott MacDonald in 2023, she was editor of New Civil Engineer – the only woman to hold the post in the magazine’s 53-year history. She has also worked as editor on Ground Engineering and Aggregates Business Europe, as well as other titles including Construction Europe, International Construction, and Transportation Professional.
May 2025 Health Estate Journal 39
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 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84
