High quality architecture and extensive stakeholder consultations have transformed the delivery of Laboratory Medicine within Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (NHSFT), explains Tim Robinson, senior architect at Race Cottam Associates, the architects on a scheme that has seen laboratory services from across the city consolidated within one modern, spacious, well-lit, and well-equipped building that should provide an extremely positive, ‘future-proofed’ working environment for staff.
Architects Race Cottam Associates, together with principal contractor BAM Construction, successfully designed and delivered the new-build element of the Laboratories Rationalisation project for Sheffield Teaching Hospitals in May 2012 under the P21 framework. The Race Cottam/BAM partnership has enjoyed a long-standing relationship with Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, with this project being the culmination of over 30 projects over seven years. This project was finished both on time and on budget. Located at the Trust’s Northern Campus, based around Sheffield’s Northern General Hospital, the new facility is seen as a key element within the Trust’s approach to provision of laboratory medicine. The new building provides a state-of-the-art autolaboratory, together with over 20 specialist laboratories to facilitate testing for the Trust, the primary care sector, GPs, and other NHS Trusts across the city and the South Yorkshire/North Midlands region. The new building accommodates a wide variety of disciplines, including clinical chemistry, haematology, microbiology, virology, and immunology.
A first phase
This project formed the first phase of a wider redevelopment scheme, with subsequent refurbishment works planned on existing facilities at both the Northern and Central campuses. “The rationalisation of Laboratory Medicine within Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHSFT was considered vital to our longterm future;” explains Professor Tim Stephenson, clinical director of Laboratory Medicine. “The service was being delivered from two sites across the city, and with ten ‘portals’ into the system, which necessitated staff and system infrastructures being recreated in each one.” It was felt that this fragmentation, combined with the difficulties of a very old estate, which was no longer fit-forpurpose, was hindering the Trust’s planning for future provision of the service in the most efficient way. The project developed as a consolidation of some services on a single site, and a rationalisation of others, based mainly on the technology available. Race Cottam, working with BAM, led consultation with up to 20 different stakeholders, including senior medical and scientific staff, in order to generate comprehensive brief and incorporate all of the Trust’s requirements for developing the service further.
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