Robert Snook, director and general manager of Portakabin Hire, offers some practical advice to, as he puts it, ‘help healthcare providers rapidly expand hospital facilities to reduce patient waiting times with no compromise on the quality of the accommodation’.
He argues that hired modular buildings can offer a considerably faster solution than traditionally built structures where additional capacity is needed urgently to meet added demand, or, for instance, during major refurbishment or upgrading of existing facilities.
Reducing waiting times is one of the most urgent priorities for NHS Trusts. Department of Health figures show that almost 250,000 (9.4 per cent) of the 2.6 million people on hospital waiting lists do not get treated within the 18 weeks guaranteed by the NHS constitution. To help address this, the Government has set a new target which states that no more than 8 per cent of patients on waiting lists should have to wait more than 18 weeks. The Department of Health is actively monitoring progress towards this, and is publishing a league table setting out hospital performance.
Ways to rapidly increase capacity
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