As refurbishments occupy a bigger proportion of the healthcare construction landscape, sensitive handling of works is more important than ever, and supplier relationships built on trust are essential, argues Chris Murphy, head of Operations at property maintenance and development specialist, Novus.
There has been a significant shift in the government’s strategy for developing the healthcare estate in the UK in the past five years – from new-build to refurbishment. The programme of largely PFI-funded projects that has seen a string of new hospitals built across the country in the past 15 years has given way to an approach much more focused on improving and extending existing facilities. There has also been a shift in emphasis away from investing in centralised acute care facilities, towards improving primary and community care buildings, including GPs’ surgeries, and specialist care facilities such as mental health centres.
From a construction perspective, this has had two major effects – firstly, it means that works are much more frequently carried out in or very close to live healthcare environments, and, secondly, they often consist of smaller projects spread across a greater geographical area.
This puts construction workers in close proximity to clinical staff and their patients, so sensitivity and trust in the relationships between client and contractor has become essential, while the more distributed nature of the work has seen a rise in framework agreements over project-by-project working.
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