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Minister favours 'sheds' for hospitals

date added: 25.07.2011

Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude emphasises future flexibility

The man in charge of ensuring government departments stick to spending cuts has said new hospital buildings could resemble “sheds” in order to save money.

Paymaster general and Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude said that too many public buildings including hospitals had not been designed with future needs in mind.

“We tend to revere bricks and mortar in this country,” he said. “We think buildings have to be built for a long, long time. In other countries there is a tendency to treat buildings as a consumable.”

Maude was speaking on Tuesday as he launched the government’s construction strategy. This is designed to cut 20% off building costs by 2015 and will see £22 billion spent on government construction projects over the next three years, of which £2.2 billion is earmarked for health schemes.

The minister said hospital buildings could be built “as sheds around people and equipment that can be reconfigured very quickly in 10 or 20 years’ time when needs change. We need to build in flexibility. We need to have a shell that’s capable of being reconfigured. At the moment, we’re building in obsolescence.”

Maude’s remarks follow the government’s favouring of “flatpack” school buildings.

“The minister wasn’t saying ’this is the way we are going’; it was more that we want to hear the industry’s ideas on this,” a Cabinet Office source said.

Nick Shapland, principal with specialist healthcare practice HKS, said Maude had a point, but he cautioned that theatres and diagnostic areas could not be reconfigured.

“Saying ’sheds’ is a bit provocative,” he added, “but some of the big PFI hospitals built are not appropriate to the needs of the trust anymore. Healthcare delivery is a fast changing thing and medical technology is smaller and more portable now.”

Source: http://www.bdonline.co.uk/news/

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