ESTATE REDEVELOPMENT


between all parties, to the overall benefit of the project or programme. Creating enduring relationships builds trust and confidence in the work that the site teams put forward, and encourages openness, transparency, and the tackling of challenges which can be solved together in the spirit of mutual collaboration. This, in turn, has helped us to play our part in the successful delivery of a range of projects, such as the new £60 million, 122-bed psychiatric intensive care hospital, Hopewood Park in Ryhope, Sunderland.


Project restraints


Working with a publicly funded body such as NHS England comes with both a need to demonstrate value for money, and to provide clear accountability and robust processes. Contractual partners must demonstrate that capital expenditure addresses an evident need and assists the delivery of healthcare- based infrastructure to support this, while maintaining a ‘right first-time’ approach. With demand for health and care services outpacing capital funding, there is no room for a miscalculation of costs, nor for delays.


The increasingly mandatory use of Her Majesty’s Treasury Green Book as the foundation for exceptional project development and appraisal makes the process of building new partnerships for projects far more planned and understood. As such, all partners within the programme must adhere religiously to the guidance, processes, and procedures, outlined within the Green Book. Failure to do so could result in the project not being approved to progress to the next stage.


With public finances facing ever more scrutiny in governmental and civic circles, instilling confidence at NHS England and the Treasury that the work undertaken by The Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust provided value for money was crucial. Through working closely with Trust clinical and governance boards and P21/ P21+ Principal Supply Chain Partners (PSCPs), we were able to provide meticulous financial and commercial advice and support to safeguard client interests, in turn helping to deliver an exemplary delivery model which satisfied the requirements of the Treasury and the NHS.


Building successful partnerships The delivery of an infrastructure project within an NHS programme of works can only be successful with open, honest, and transparent relationships among supply chain partners and the Trusts’ healthcare professionals. Without the ability to air grievances and share lessons learned, the relationship can become fraught with


52 Health Estate Journal April 2020


The Ferndene facility, at the former Prudhoe Hospital site 12 miles west of Newcastle, provides regional and national Tier 4 Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) services for children and young aged 13-18. Tier 4 CAMHS units are for patients with more complex needs usually requiring inpatient treatment.


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Working with a publicly funded body such as NHS England comes with both a need to demonstrate value for money, and to provide clear accountability and robust processes


challenges – potentially impacting the successful completion of works. Relationships – particularly those spanning over a decade – require teams to come together as one cohesive delivery partner. The Trust’s teams took an exceptionally long-term and proactive approach to collaboration and the sharing of best practice and knowledge. To this extent, the Trust encouraged close working relationships, including embedding members of our team and those of the Trust’s supply chain partners into a programme management-style arrangement. This has meant that we have been able to gain complete oversight of the programme of works and can learn – and respond – very quickly where core challenges exist, and how we, as a team, can overcome these. Programmes such as the redevelopment of Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust require input from more than just design and architectural specialists. They require a completely integrated, system-wide consultation process across clinical, patient ,and


delivery teams. In this instance, NHS staff and service-users were consulted through a series of transformation workshops. The information gathered and lessons learned in these sessions proved invaluable for the development of innovative new ideas relating to patient care and developing enhanced care pathways.


For example, feedback from the Trust’s staff fed into the testing of anti-ligature openable window designs at the Greentrees Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU)/Lennox at St Nicholas’ Hospital and Belsay/Bothal at Northgate Hospital. New approaches to care facility design enable staff to provide safer and better care for service-users, one of the Trust’s primary values.


A renewed focus


Unlike the delivery of infrastructure in areas such as transport and leisure, delivering a healthcare facility within budget comes with a caveat – what you might perceive to be a ‘nice to have’ as a cost manager is often a necessity, and aids patient comfort and safety. Aesthetic design considerations, which on other projects may have been diluted or removed to minimise project costs, are considered vital for the comfort and rehabilitation of service-users. On many of the projects, key therapeutic design was critical, and Art by Dan Savage of Artstop Studios provides a clear benefit to patients. Equally, wide, single-loaded bedroom corridors provide an openness that enables patients to explore their surroundings in a safe manner, and ensure that ward staff can maintain visual contact.


Managing a programme on this scale focuses the mind and shifts perceptions


©Jill Tate


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