ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN
Facility will see healthcare and education meet
Philip Watson, director and head of Design at HLM Architects, discusses plans for a new building in London which will bring together university research excellence, clinical practice, ‘and the medtech’s sector’s innovation and talent’, to foster rapid development of new products and technologies that will ‘benefit patients sooner and more effectively’. He explains how the building’s prospective users were extensively consulted on the ‘ideal’ working environment.
The London Institute for Healthcare Engineering (LIHE), part of the vision for St Thomas’ MedTech Hub,* is a joint initiative led by King’s School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. It will involve the construction of a new building embedded within St Thomas’ campus which will bring together King’s research excellence, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust’s leading clinical practice, and the medtech sector’s commercial innovation power and talent, engaging multinationals, SMEs, and start-ups simultaneously. This close collaboration will ensure that research in healthcare engineering is translated rapidly into new products and technologies that will benefit patients sooner and more effectively. This article explores how the design meets the challenges of creating a place where innovation and collaboration are nurtured and facilitated by the built environment – a place where education and healthcare meet, and innovation and research flourish. Professor Sebastien Ourselin, head of the School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences at King’s School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences, neatly encapsulates the ethos and aims of the new Institute when he says: “We need to pioneer approaches that will advance the implementation of new medical technology into the patient care pathway while enhancing the standard of care. The London Institute for Healthcare Engineering will address these aspects by physically embedding staff from multiple sectors to create an ecosystem to accelerate end-to-end translation of novel healthcare technologies.”
Surrounded by listed buildings Located opposite the Palace of Westminster, adjacent to Lambeth Place, and surrounded by Grade II Listed buildings, LIHE’s initial focus will be on key clinical challenges in cancer, neurological, cardiovascular, ophthalmology, oral health, and prenatal conditions. These were
*According to King’s College London, ‘senior leaders from King’s College London, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, and key commercial partners, introduced the ambitious endeavour which aims to create an ecosystem where we can translate research into health and economic impact. This will be delivered by facilitating intensive collaboration between sectors on cutting-edge projects, which range from novel digital health technologies to life-saving invasive medical devices’.
An aerial computer-generated image of the London Institute for Healthcare Engineering, to be located opposite the Palace of Westminster, adjacent to Lambeth Place, and surrounded by Grade II Listed buildings.
selected for their high disease burden and potential for transformational treatment through healthcare engineering. The location of the new facility on the Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospital site enables researchers to easily access adjacent equipment and technology that allows them to quickly test prototypes. It is this gestation and
testing of research ideas that inspired how the building was designed – to be flexible and adaptable, as well as to encourage encounters that lead to innovation. Through HLM Architects’ previous experience in the design of research facilities, we have implemented a digital tool called ‘HLMInsight’, which, through
October 2021 Health Estate Journal 39
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