Whole system masterplans and deflective care models

The Health Building Note suggest that “at the master planning stage, there are certain design requirements that need to be considered as they apply across the whole site.” Our way of working and the basis of our advice is to look at built assets and facilities development as part of a whole system approach which looks at how health facilities respond to Models of Care and Clinical Services Strategies.

An understanding of how clinical services interact with each other is vital. We promote engagement across clinical and estates teams defining activity and capacity analyses. We review the Clinical Strategy and associated Models of Care including the IMT and Digital Strategy.

Now more than ever it is critical that we understand how acute hospitals sit within their healthcare network in order to promote deflective care. At Blackpool Teaching Hospitals emergency department we implemented digital triage service to help people thinking that they need hospital treatment to undertake an independent assessment and consider whether their care would be better supported in the community healthcare network.

Equally we recognise that acute sites are major anchor institutions of any town, city or capital. Understanding the role that each Acute Trust has as part of the community is vital in generating shared opportunities with peer anchor institutions such as local authorities, universities, transport providers, colleges, registered providers (housing associations) and key industry partners. As a business our public sector teams are able to unlock opportunities in the wider system to support off-site office space, improved transport and access, better negotiated rents, and collaborative work environments, and land acquisition or disposal. As a matter of course we seek out these opportunities across our consultancy teams and host internal summits to generate these opportunities for our clients.

This is ever more important with many councils in the UK signing up to the climate emergency declarations. From this we are able to bring forward heat network opportunities for the benefits of our clients, with as Manchester Metropolitan University and Manchester Teaching Hospitals where we are looking at the feasibility for heat networks along the Oxford Road corridor in the city.