IWICE: Could NHS’ new hospitals programme strategy be a skills and diversity blueprint?

Hospital 2.0 could improve diversity

Hospital building needs to and is moving away from historic approaches, according to NHS England’s new hospital programme chief programme officer Morag Stuart. And that includes a bigger focus on diversity.

The NHS has a significant backlog in maintenance and renewal works estimated at £12bn. Stuart warned that with over 500 hospitals across of complex estate, this is likely a significant under-estimate.

“I think it is way worse than that. We have 515 hospitals and the typical lifespan of a hospital is in theory 60 to 65 years.

“So we have to replace several hospitals every year forever and we haven’t done that for 15 years.”

Stuart stressed that fixing this would mean taking a very different approach to the past as the programme seeks to establish greater standardisation and less bespoke approaches hospital-by-hospital. And she stressed that the NHS is seeking a different profile of people or companies in the supply chain.

Speaking at IWICE in London today, Stuart explained that the NHS is very different to construction. Having spent her career in defence and construction, arriving in the NHS with so many women in so many roles at all levels – including the most senior roles within the new hospital programme – she said it was a revelation because the “the NHS is normal” and construction is not.

This is something that supply chains will need to address as the NHS is not willing to put at risk its diverse profile – including in its new hospital programme.

“We’re really conscious of trying to retain that diversity in what we do because it could so easily change. And you have to fight for it.”

The nature of the work will change too, which Stuart noted might create an opportunity to strengthen diversity of the supply chains involved.

Hospital 2.0

“What we’re doing to transform the way that we deliver for Healthcare is create a standard hospital 2.0. Within that, all of the rooms will be 100% single rooms with bathrooms. They will all be the same size room, the same size bathroom, the same height of ceiling, etc.

“The rooms will all deliver different services, but they’re fundamentally constructed in a repeatable way, and that has a huge knock on for the supply chain, for manufacturing and for assembling the hospitals much, much faster, because quite frankly, the way that hospitals are designed and built in this country is wrong. It’s too bespoke.

As a result, the programme is moving away from seeking hospital building experience.

“If you build a railway, you can probably build the hospital; it’s not that different. And so I’m saying I’m not going to score health experience in my procurement of main contractors. I don’t care about that. And I certainly don’t want a load of people from those main contractors that have only built hospitals in this country, because it’s not going to be relevant.”

As a result, there is an opportunity to attract different kinds of people with different experiences that will prove relevant.

“Moving between sectors can make this industry more appealing to talent and I learned something every time I moved sector. But you have to have quite a lot of confidence to think ‘my skills definitely apply there’ and for people to recognise that your skills will apply that.

“So, I think it’s now about setting that mission out and encouraging people.”

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