Merit explained: “ This pioneering facility will feature a two-storey design that houses a cutting-edge hybrid theatre, an MRI suite, and essential supporting services, along with office spaces. Our innovative offsite construction methods will significantly reduce the project timeline, enabling the Trust to open its doors to patients much more swiftly than traditional building approaches would allow.”
Works have already started at Merit’s Cramlington ‘smart factory’ to manufacture the offsite components. By leveraging ‘advanced offsite manufacturing capabilities’, Merit’s team will conduct simultaneous offsite and on-site operations, ‘resulting in a streamlined and efficient construction process’. The company explained: “The new facility has been developed in close collaboration with clinical teams and end-users, with a focus on optimising workflow efficiency, patient care, and staff functionality.”
Merit’s will utilise its FLEXI POD approach to deliver the new facility, which it says merges traditional building techniques for the shell and core, with an offsite manufactured fit-out facilitated through a ‘PODs’ and Pre-Assembled Modules (PAMs) strategy. The new building will be designed as ‘a low-carbon, all-electric, and energy-efficient facility’, that will be ‘Zero Scope 1 Carbon in operation-enabled’, and will comfortably achieve an EPC-A rating.
Liz Hill, Associate CEO for Surgery, York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: “This is an exciting development for the Trust, and we’re delighted to be working in partnership with Merit to help deliver excellent diagnostic and vascular care for our patients. The new facilities will be a real asset for us, creating a modern, spacious, innovative MRI suite with state-of-the-art technology and a cutting-edge vascular hybrid theatre.”