Measuring best value from ‘refurb’ projects

One of the major drivers, explains Grant Wilson, a completing PhD researcher with the University’s Institute for Innovation, Design and Sustainability (IDEAS), was to provide a mechanism via which NHS estates managers, design teams, and contractors, could ‘evidence and demonstrate’ that best value-for-money had been pursued, ‘specific to the facility in question, and in the context of its unique business case requirements’.

There is no doubt that the economic climate seen in the UK in recent years has presented enormous challenges for the NHS. During my PhD research at the Robert Gordon University, I have been studying the effects on the provision of healthcare services, and the challenges faced in terms of adequately maintaining the built estate. As most clinicians, asset and estates managers, and construction professionals with specialist knowledge of, and expertise in, the healthcare facilities field will acknowledge, the challenge for the NHS in the 21st century is almost ‘Canute-like’ in magnitude. Huge efficiency savings are demanded by the Government, at a juncture in the NHS’s history when the provision of services is becoming increasingly stretched. The pressures on the NHS are multi-faceted, with the challenges compounded by an increasing occurrence of ‘modern’, ‘lifestyle-influenced’ diseases such as obesity and diabetes. Another wellrecognised concern is the rapid growth in the ageing population, who are often subject to co-morbidities and associated complications in treatment.

The built estate