How the New Hospital Programme could reshape the delivery of major infrastructure
The Hospital 2.0 Alliance is the most significant shift in UK healthcare infrastructure procurement in a generation, as Anastasia Chrysafi explains
Today, Stage 0 contracts have been executed across all eleven Wave 1 schemes in the New Hospital Programme. Eleven NHS trusts, ten construction partners, one programme, all now formally in contract.
It is an important achievement and the pace deserves recognition. The Alliance was established in February and within five months, construction partners have been matched with trusts, relationships have been established and all 11 schemes have progressed into contract. For Willmott Dixon, it marks the formal beginning of our partnership with Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust (RCHT) on the new Women and Children’s Hospital in Truro.
We are massively excited to be working with RCHT, its clinical and programme teams, consultants and our New Hospital Programme partners on a scheme that will bring significant benefits to people across Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.
What Stage 0 means
Stage 0 provides the early contractor involvement needed to create firm foundations for successful delivery.
It brings us into the team when contractor knowledge and practical delivery experience can meaningfully inform the next stage of the scheme. Working alongside the Trust’s programme team, its clinicians, its consultants and the national New Hospital Programme, we will build a shared understanding of the scope, programme and constraints, review buildability, identify risks and opportunities and help shape the procurement and delivery strategy.
This is particularly important on a busy operational acute hospital campus. RCHT must continue providing care throughout construction. Decisions about sequencing, logistics, access, temporary arrangements and enabling works will all influence how effectively we maintain service continuity and minimise disruption for patients, staff and visitors.
Our experience of delivering complex healthcare projects on live hospital sites will therefore be important from the outset. Stage 0 gives the integrated team the time and structure to apply that experience before the scheme moves into detailed design and delivery.
The new Women and Children’s Hospital
This will be the largest healthcare infrastructure investment ever undertaken in Cornwall.
Bringing new maternity, neonatal, paediatric, obstetric and gynaecology services together into a single purpose-built facility supports faster diagnoses, improves patient flow and safety and enables clinical teams to work more efficiently.
The scheme also provides a new neonatal unit designed to help families stay together, dedicated paediatric accommodation and assessment facilities a midwife-led birthing centre and bereavement and safeguarding suites.
There is an important workforce benefit too. A modern, digitally enabled clinical environment supports more efficient pathways, and it helps Cornwall attract and retain the highly skilled healthcare professionals a peninsula county has to work hard to recruit.
Building on strong foundations
We are not starting from a blank page. RCHT has developed its clinical vision over several years and has already undertaken significant work to prepare the site and progress the scheme. It has appointed a strong multi-disciplinary design team and has developed designs that adopt the Hospital 2.0 standard.
Our role in Stage 0 is to build on that work, bringing delivery and construction expertise into an established clinical and design vision and working with the existing team to make the scheme as safe, efficient and deliverable as possible.
What happens next
Stage 0 now begins a collaborative period of familiarisation, design development and delivery planning with RCHT and its team. We will work through the scheme information in detail, align the local requirements with the national Hospital 2.0 approach and prepare for the subsequent stages of design and delivery.
For me, there are three immediate priorities.
- First, ensuring that learning flows in both directions: what we learn in Cornwall must benefit the other Wave 1 schemes and the experience of those schemes must inform our work in Truro. That shared learning is one of the greatest strengths of the Alliance.
- Second, making sure Hospital 2.0 standardisation supports Cornwall’s clinical requirements and local context. Standardisation should provide a strong and efficient platform, while enabling RCHT to deliver the right clinical outcomes for its patients and staff.
- Third, beginning meaningful engagement with Cornish businesses early enough for them to prepare and compete for opportunities as the programme develops.
The measure of success
Today is a significant milestone for the New Hospital Programme and the pace of the last five months deserves recognition. Yet, contracts signed are an input, not an outcome.
Success will ultimately be measured by the quality of the hospital delivered: whether it provides better, safer and more efficient care for women, children and families, creates an outstanding working environment for NHS staff and becomes a facility that Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly can be proud of.
That is the outcome we will remain focused on throughout Stage 0 and every stage that follows.