Select Committee on Health Minutes of Evidence


APPENDIX A

  Statement from John Clarke of Strategic Healthcare Planning, the Trust's Health Planning and Architectural Adviser for Worcestershire Royal Hospital PFI.

  I felt that the Trust and the Consortium had a common goal. The common goal was that they wanted to build a hospital that responded to flexible models of care, and one which both the Trust and the Consortium could consider to be a flagship. It was a case of genuinely working together to fulfil this goal. The design was developed combining American and English approaches to healthcare whereby the American models were anglicised to suit the visions of the Trust. This can be illustrated in three examples:

  1.  An integrated approach to emergency services by virtue of co-location of associated specialities. The building was designed to respond to trauma services. We have A&E adjacent to specialist radiology, intensive care and theatres which in turn are adjacent to trauma wards, which also include therapy services for the ongoing treatment for trauma patients and emergency medical wards, including cardiology.

  2.  The development of ambulatory services. At the time of the commencement of the design of this hospital the UK had not embraced the approach to ambulatory services that is now being generally adopted. The design of this hospital brought about the integration of ambulatory services within the general hospital setting through the co-location of associated activities, eg general and specialist outpatient departments, clinical investigation, outpatient radiology, endoscopy and day care surgery. The day case theatres were co-located with inpatient theatres to facilitate flexible working across the boundaries.

  3.  Flexibility of inpatient planning. The ward templates were designed to accommodate future flexibility within current guidelines. Each ward floor level has a 72 bedded template and is designed with multiple staff bases that facilitate nursing of bed numbers in combinations from 6 to 36, thereby providing much flexibility as trends change.


 
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