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SCHOOLS, HOSPITALS & PUBLIC BUILDINGS
King's College Hospital
Premier recently installed the final modules on site for a new outpatient services building at King’s College Hospital in London
Offsite construction in healthcare Why the demand for offsite solutions for healthcare continues to rise. In this article, David Harris, Managing Director of Premier Modular — one of the UK’s leading offsite specialists — looks at the renewed focus on offsite construction and how it is helping to address some of the biggest challenges for healthcare providers. here is definitely a surge in interest in offsite construction in every sector, but particularly in healthcare. The speed and quality benefits of taking a manufacturing approach to construction are clear and have been well documented — but are now more relevant than ever before. The pressure on health services and particularly on emergency care units has continued to rise year on year — and then the pandemic hit.
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Complex, specialist and highly serviced facilities The buildings required to expand capacity in the NHS can be complex, specialist and highly serviced facilities and needed on already extremely constrained hospital sites.
There is also the critical issue of minimising disruption to the provision of existing hospital services during construction. These requirements are increasingly being met using innovative offsite solutions — on severely restricted sites, in up to half the time of site-based building methods, with much less disruption to patient care, greater certainty of completion on budget and on programme, and to stringent quality standards. With superior design, highly efficient processes and a robust and flexible building solution, offsite construction can deliver comfortable and welcoming environments for patients and staff, with complete longterm flexibility to meet changing local needs, in compliance with NHS best practice for building design — and on some of the UK’s most challenging building sites.
Increasing use of offsite in the healthcare sector
A CGI of the completed King's College Hospital Outpatient Services Building
Significant government investment in healthcare is underway — as well as in infrastructure and education — and now with a welcome presumption in favour of offsite. Flexibility is key. Offsite specialists such as Premier Modular can deliver turnkey projects manufactured and fitted out offsite — and have the expertise to marry offsite with in-situ construction methods to create
hybrid solutions to meet individual project requirements with optimum efficiency. Offsite construction can provide purpose-designed healthcare facilities and extensions for permanent applications, or high-quality temporary buildings to meet short-term increases in service demand or for decant use during redevelopments. Leading offsite specialists such as Premier can work as a principal contractor directly for an NHS trust, as a supply chain partner to a main contractor, or using construction management. The opportunities for offsite are then tremendous.
Rapid building solutions for healthcare New Outpatient Services Building at King’s College Hospital Premier has recently installed the final modules on site for a new 3,450sqm outpatient services building at King’s College Hospital in London — a major milestone in the build programme. The £21m contract is Premier’s largest single offsite healthcare project. Constructed offsite, this large-scale, fourstorey building will allow the Trust to free up space within the main hospital to help reduce waiting times and improve the patient experience for urgent care services.
