The £9.4 million National Garden Scheme (NGS) Macmillan Unit at Chesterfield Royal Hospital has been officially opened by the Duke of Gloucester, with Mott MacDonald delivering multidisciplinary engineering services on ‘one of the UK’s first centres to provide truly holistic cancer care and support in one unit’.
The two-storey, purpose-built NGS Macmillan Unit has been providing treatment since summer 2017, and combines a variety of cancer treatment and support services under one roof in ‘a flexible, low maintenance, and sustainable building’. Services include haematology, oncology, acute oncology, and chemotherapy, plus palliative and supportive care. The unit incorporates 21 treatment chairs, two treatment beds, and three treatment rooms for chemotherapy patients, tripling the previous treatment capacity, along with a Macmillan Information and Support Centre.
Mott MacDonald provided mechanical, electrical, civil, and structural engineering services, and advice on highways design and BREEAM sustainability assessments. The consultancy also helped Vinci Construction, the project contractor, develop a materials management plan that allowed the relocation of site-won material to other areas in the hospital’s estate. This helped reduce treatment and disposal-related programme and cost pressures, contributing to a BREEAM ‘Very Good’ rating.
Ian Hurst, Mott MacDonald’s project director, said: “From the project’s outset we collaborated closely with the architect, clinical and estates teams, Macmillan, and patients, to ensure their needs were placed at the core of our designs. In doing so, we helped deliver an uplifting and therapeutic centre with an efficient, flexible layout which enhances service delivery and considers the patient journey, clinical timetabling, and room occupancy.”
