OFFSITE CONSTRUCTION
Pushing the boundaries for ambulatory care
Raymond Millar, Construction director at The McAvoy Group, explains how a new ambulatory care facility was delivered at the Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital in Cramlington in less than a year – a speed of programme that it believes is ‘unprecedented’ for a project of this scale.
In March 2018, Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust called the McAvoy offsite healthcare team to a meeting to discuss its ambitious schedule of accommodation. The Trust had established a clinical need for a purpose- designed ambulatory care facility to help decompress a very busy emergency department and ensure that patients are seen quickly by the most appropriate healthcare professional. Ambulatory care provides urgent same-day medical care without the need for patients to stay overnight in hospital.
The Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital in Cramlington opened in 2015, and is England’s first purpose-built specialist emergency care hospital, with emergency consultants on site 24 hours a day, seven days a week, supported by consultants in a range of specialties. However, the existing facilities did not suit the type of service provision offered by ambulatory care – which was operating in a converted ward. The Trust believed the most effective solution would be a dedicated, purpose-designed unit to provide a much improved environment for patients – and built using offsite construction to achieve earlier occupation.
The Trust’s requirements The Trust wanted the new building to replicate the existing hospital, and recognised that additional accommodation would be needed to meet the future care needs of the local community. The solution was to construct a three-storey wing offsite, which would precisely match the design of the original facilities, both internally and externally. The ambulatory care unit would occupy the middle floor to provide level access to both the main hospital entrance and the A&E Department. This would achieve the most efficient patient flows. The ground and second floors would be fitted out as a future phase.
The building had to be fully compliant with all relevant HTM and HBN requirements, and to have no difference in feel, appearance, or quality to the
The project used larger, bespoke modules up to 14.85 m long, specially engineered ‘to provide a structural flooring solution that seamlessly integrates the existing hospital building on each level’.
existing facilities. It would be seamlessly linked to the existing hospital on three levels.
Developing the design The new building had to follow the architectural principles of the existing hospital. This has a bold, striking, and simplistic design, and is finished in the
Trust’s corporate colours of blue and white. Award-winning healthcare architect, P+HS, had worked with both the Trust and The McAvoy Group previously, and was brought into the team to develop the schedule of accommodation with the users and the design to suit offsite construction. This was a challenging project – to extend a traditionally-built hospital with offsite construction to an incredibly tight programme. The new unit had to be fully operational by summer 2019, just 11 months after start on site. However, we were working with a very informed client, experienced in construction procurement, and a clinical user group had already been established.
The speed of construction was a key benefit to the Trust – in terms of significantly less on-site disruption to patient care, reduced waiting times, and a faster return on investment.
P+HS assessed the clinical flows with the user group to produce a schedule of accommodation before developing the detailed design. Planning was achieved soon after, in May 2018, and McAvoy started foundations in August 2018, at the same time as the offsite manufacture of the building structure began at the McAvoy factory in Northern Ireland. This parallel working generates significant programme reductions.
October 2019 Health Estate Journal 149
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 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160
