The PSC (The Public Service Consultants) and the Plymouth Local Care Partnership have co- developed what they describe as an innovative ‘Blueprint’ approach to designing healthcare estates that ‘effectively meets population needs and enables seamless integration of care’.
The business said: “Recognising the significant misalignment between existing healthcare systems, primarily designed for immediate interventions, and the evolving healthcare challenges posed by ageing, lifestyle factors, and long-term conditions, the Blueprint approach seeks to drive the transformative change necessary to address these issues head on.”
‘Integration lies at the heart of the Blueprint approach’, bringing together teams and organisations to plan development of the local healthcare estate ‘in a way that meets the needs of the local population – today and in the future’. By adopting this approach, The PSC and the Plymouth Local Care Partnership claim to be ‘leading the charge towards a new era of healthcare delivery that prioritises the management of long-term conditions, illness prevention, and reducing health inequalities’.
“The Blueprint programme has transformed our approach to strategic estates planning in Plymouth,” said Stuart Windsor, Future Hospital director, and spokesperson for the Plymouth Local Care Partnership. “Our planning is therefore coordinated as a system, and targeted where it is most needed. This will provide us with better value for money for our investment, and prevent the siloed, reactive approach of the past.”
The Blueprint approach comprises four key steps:
- Identifying the population need.
- Agreeing on common principles for models of care.
- Developing an estates masterplan for key population cohorts.
- Identifying project cases and securing funding.
In Plymouth, it is projected that by 2034, over 20% of the population will be aged over 65, and 9.7% will report long-term health problems or disabilities. The PSC says the city faces ‘higher than average prevalence’ of chronic conditions such as asthma, coronary heart disease, and diabetes, and significant health inequalities among its most and least deprived areas. The PSC said: “As elsewhere, Plymouth’s healthcare estate has developed incrementally, and lacks the flexibility required for seamless care coordination and collaboration, and the necessary community infrastructure to provide comprehensive services to individuals with chronic conditions and preventive care requirements.”
The Blueprint programme has – the project partners say – ‘brought about a shift in the strategic estate planning approach of the Plymouth Local Care Partnership’. No longer evaluating the estate solely based on condition, utilisation, and cost, the Partnership now ‘recognises the estate as a critical enabler for service integration and the delivery of care, which aligns with the specific needs of the local population’.
Smriti Singh, Associate Partner at The PSC, said: “The Blueprint approach represents a transformative milestone in the planning of healthcare estates. By collaborating closely, health and care providers and budget-holders are delivering ‘integration’ in the form of healthcare estates that truly meets the needs of the population they serve, and modelling an ‘integrated’ approach to estates planning.”
The PSC adds that while University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust has been allocated funding under the NHP for redevelopment of the Trust’s main Derriford site (see artist’s impression of a new hospital there), ‘plans for a new hospital in the city could not be developed in isolation; new hospitals must be right-sized for future demand, and reserved for the acutely unwell’.
