How NHS estates are developing BIM, the NEC3 contracts, and the ‘IoT’

In this ‘Q&A’-style article, Karl Redmond MSc, director of both the BIM4HEALTH and UK BIM4SME Groups, looks at how NHS estates teams are developing, and can benefit from, Building Information Modelling (BIM), and explains how the NEC3 contracts, and the new ProCure 22 Framework, ‘enable the all-important collaboration required for BIM to be successful’. He also discusses progress on the latest pilot projects being developed by architecture and lead consultancy practice, Enable by Design, which is ‘aiming to tackle the cultural and technological barriers that can cause diffculties when attempting to create positive, highly disruptive, efficient, and joined-up clinical and physical asset care initiatives’.

The NHS Five Year Forward View report highlighted the need to capitalise on the information (digital) revolution and the opportunities it presents, but are NHS estates personnel ready and able to engage in the BIM process? Will the Employer’s Information Requirements (EIRs) etc. be clear? 

There are a growing number of strategic documents and initiatives which support, dovetail, and follow up on the ‘Five Year Forward View’ report, all of which need combining and coordinating, and then disseminating down to those on the front line. NHS estates teams should be part of the dissemination target group. They need to understand the strategies being developed on a local level in order to place into context their own part in the plan, and identify how they can maximise their offering for the benefit of the Trust, and, more importantly, their patients.