Designed with multidisciplinary input

As HEJ editor, Jonathan Bailie reports, key to the company meeting the tight deadlines were the off-site construction of the 31 modules while groundworks were simultaneously completed on site, and the excellent collaboration between the modular building specialist, the main contractor, Skanska Facilities Services, and the estates and facilities team at the Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust.

Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust, which operates the 550-bed Walsall Manor Hospital, provides local, general hospital, and community services to around 260,000 people in Walsall and the surrounding area. The only NHS acute care provider in Walsall, the Trust offers both inpatient and outpatient services at the Manor Hospital, plus a wide range of services in the community. 

A £170 million PFI-funded development scheme at the hospital’s Pleck Road site completed by Skanska Construction Services in 2010 saw both major work undertaken on the main hospital – parts of which were 150 years’ old – and the construction of a new Diagnostic and Treatment and Centre, and a Women, Children and Young People’s Centre linked to the existing maternity unit and West Wing. Further elements of the scheme included the provision of a new ‘multiprofessional’ education centre, and the construction of a five-storey, 136-bed modular ward block as part of the advanced works, which is mainly used to accommodate elderly patients.