North Cumbria University Hospitals NHS Trust has selected a partner for the £100 m redevelopment of West Cumberland Hospital in Whitehaven (above – an artist’s impression of the new hospital interior), a project it says will significantly boost the local economy and help regenerate West Cumbria.
Laing O’Rourke will lead the design and construction element of a project said to signal West Cumbria’s biggest single capital investment in healthcare for over half a century. Selected by the North Cumbria University Hospitals NHS Trust from seven potential national partners, Laing O’Rourke has promised that the majority of the workforce will be sourced “from local postcodes”. A publicly funded capital project, the redevelopment will see most acute clinical services provided in new-build accommodation, including an emergency care centre, new theatres, new ambulatory care, and new wards. Technologies selected will ensure it delivers a “low to zero carbon impact”. Now the UK’s largest privately-owned construction firm, Laing O’Rourke in fact owes its own foundations to Cumbria, having been founded by John Laing in Cockermouth in 1848.
