New Hospitals Programme and Industry: Deep dive into the collaboration needed to transform hospital estates

Authors: Mike Shaw, NHP Director of Design and Tom Stocks, NHP Head of MMC

The New Hospital Programme (NHP) team were delighted to be part of the recent Construction Innovation Day. The day gave a great sense of the progress that is being made across government departments in the UK. It was particularly interesting in that it illustrated the now common understanding of the concepts and ideas behind Platforms. These are obviously well embedded in industry and client bodies alike. 

The New Hospital Programme is replacing outdated infrastructure with modern, innovative and environmentally sustainable buildings to provide top-class healthcare services and facilities for patients, staff and local communities. Digital technology will change the way healthcare is delivered in these facilities. Smart technology will reduce basic and repetitive tasks and free up time for patient care. Working with NHS Trusts, government and industry, our centralised programme’s mission is to: 

• Help NHS trusts to provide high-quality and sustainable care for patients.  
• Deliver intelligent hospitals. 
• Develop national capability. 
• Build better, build faster and build a sustainable legacy. 

The most common theme for the workshops was collaboration, a theme that NHP has central to the programme development. Rather than treating each project as a standalone scheme, we will capture opportunities to standardise design and leverage scale to maximise effectiveness and efficiency. We will continue to engage with the supply chain to innovate and build on the benefits that Platform and Platform principles have and can deliver for the Trusts we are working with to create the new hospitals.