CONSTRUCTION


Timescale issues and a distinct lack of data


In September’s HEJ we ran the first half of an article on an interesting and forthright discussion at a roundtable event held in mid-June at the Leeds offices of solicitors, Clarion. This covered some of the key elements in, and far-reaching ramifications of, the Building Safety Act 2022, which came into force in October 2023 – both for the healthcare construction chain, and healthcare engineering and estate management personnel. Here HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie, reports on the event’s second half.


In the first half of the roundtable, topics covered included how much knowledge, or lack of it, there appears to be both within the construction supply chain and among NHS EFM teams of the Building Safety Act and its provisions; the way the current healthcare estate is managed from a health and safety, legal, and longevity and sustainability standpoint; what kinds of buildings are covered by the Act, the various Gateways through the design, construction, and planning process – and what each entails – and some of the dangers if the various parties involved in new- build and refurbishment healthcare projects fail to take the correct steps to ensure safety and compliance at the right time. The discussion’s second half began with a focus on the pressures imposed by short project lifecycles, and the potential issues where building data is incomplete.


Very short project lifecycles Stuart Dalton of Hive Projects said: ”In the NHS particularly we work on very short project lifecycles and timescales. Typical projects are on a capital programme that might, at best, be five years, or just a couple, but are usually annual. Gathering all the information on a ward that may have been partially refurbished four or five times, with partially completed O & M documents or contradictory information, designs tend to move ahead with a lot of assumptions predicated on the point at which you get ownership and have vacated clinicians and other people. At that juncture, you’ll do some opening up and confirm your plans. I think as we go through the Gateway process particularly we will see unforeseen findings and surveys related to asbestos, fire safety, or whatever it might be. That clock then starts ticking, and all your good work on design assumptions, detail, and specifications, gets put on hold to address an issue you’ve encountered on site that might instantly delay the project by 2-3 months. In a 12-year cycle, such a delay has a massive impact on deliverability. “Certainly centrally,” Stuart Dalton explained, “the NHS


and others who fund these buildings are not necessarily that flexible in how long they can stretch the funding over. It’s counter-intuitive for those wanting to do the right thing, but there’s not the spare capacity or vacant space to allow those conversations and ‘opening up’ exercises to happen.” Chair Steve Batson, of Stephen George + Partners,


said: “On the funding point Andrew raised, you have the new-build route, but the other part of the conundrum is the existing estate and how we refurbish, alter, maintain, and extend it. Part of the jigsaw with the existing estate is that you have the capital project money and then the ticking growth of some £12 bn of backlog maintenance, which increased especially during COVID – because people either couldn’t


afford to maintain, or couldn’t get access to do so. As soon as you get to the periphery boundary – whether it’s a leased or an NHS-managed area, and reach that opening up stage, you may have a capital budget for the activity within that space, have completed the design, and set out the intent at Gateway 1 and Gateway 2. When you open up though, and, discover what’s above the walls or behind the ceilings, there’s a risk of adding to the backlog pot. I think there’s a debate to be had about how we fund the existing estate in future.” Steve Batson continued: “How do you take on responsibility for that the space without that discussion or evidence? The digital capture of this data on refurbishment projects under the annual Premises Assurance Model reporting perhaps needs to include some form of registration of those projects? In some instances, the evidence NHS Trusts have on their estate’s condition is really poor. Sometimes they don’t know what they have at all, or have systems from tracing papers transposed to CAD. These may be so inaccurate that you’re not sure what you’re working with – from a structural or an M&E standpoint.” His colleague, Dean Payton, said: “We’ve talked with various Trusts, and I think some of the Capital and Estates Teams have almost talked about ‘banking projects’, i.e. getting to OBC or even less far, to Stage 1, where they can do some of the surveys and investigations where they can. Then – should the funding come – you will be striving to get them done by a particular point in the financial year. “Now, even just to book a survey,” he continued, “you’re


looking at a couple of months potentially. In the old ‘blue book’ days they’d have masterplan – a projected plan of works going forward. There is evidence of this in various Trusts, but I think there are key questions about linking the jigsaw pieces to form the full picture. ‘Is there an up-to-date Development Control Plan (DCP)?’, ‘Where are all these


Participants Taking part in the roundtable were:


n Chair, Steve Batson, Studio director and Sector Lead for Healthcare, Stephen George + Partners.


n Phil Morrison, Partner, Clarion.


n Steve Crow,


Business Development director, Clarion.


n Trevor Rogers, Regulatory specialist, LABC.


n Andrew Varley, Director, International Facilities, Steris.


n Dean Payton, Associate, Stephen George + Partners.


n Stuart Dalton, Programme manager, Hive Projects.


n Connie Campbell, Senior Mechanical Engineer, Hoare Lea.


n Andy Buckley, Design Director, Curtins.


n Jonathan Baillie, Editor, Health Estate Journal.


The roundtable was the idea of Steve Batson MIHEEM, Studio director and Sector Lead for Healthcare at architecture and masterplanning practice, Stephen George + Partners.


October 2024 Health Estate Journal 25


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