The New Hospital Programme has been tasked with transforming and modernising NHS healthcare facilities in England. It is, the team behind it says, ‘a once-in-a-generation opportunity to rethink our approach to the NHS – much more than a set of new buildings, it’s a whole new way of working’. Transformation director and Chief Nurse, Josie Rudman, outlines ‘the programme’s ambition, and the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead’.
Our mission is to replace outdated infrastructure with facilities for both patients and staff that are on the cutting edge of modern technology, innovation, and sustainability. We will radically improve the way hospitals are designed, procured, and built, but this is more than a construction process; it is about the whole way the NHS operates, and a real chance to develop and deliver much-needed extra capacity. Within the New Hospital Programme, it is the Transformation Team’s job to ensure that this happens. We are the middle person, working with hospital Trusts to help them achieve what they need from new buildings, and helping the construction sector and suppliers to deliver on that need.
We will be there all the way – from the design phase and demand and capacity modelling, through creating flexible clinical and staff spaces, and beyond opening to post-occupation learning.
Supplier partners to ‘come on the journey’
We need supplier partners who want to come with us on that journey – not just once, but several times to deliver 40 schemes by 2030. At the end of each build, we will analyse what went right, what should be repeated, and what can be improved upon and refined for future builds. This is important to us because we’re scientists – we are an evidencebased profession. Our decisions must be based on measured reasoning, not personal likes and dislikes. Our approach to how we build hospitals is the same as our approach to our jobs – show us the evidence for doing something that will bring measurable benefits and we’re interested
We will come together with NHS Trusts, construction companies, and suppliers, to co-design and co-produce our hospitals. We’re excited by the prospect of developing hospital buildings that will stand the test of time, developing new standards and sourcing the right products.
We’re giving NHS staff the tools and operating procedures to get the most from their new environment – to drive safety, positive experience, and productivity.
A ‘lack of logic’
Few hospitals have been built to function as modern hospitals. Original structures have been added to with all sorts of extensions and temporary structures that somehow become permanent. The result is that they don’t function as well as they should. The lack of logic behind which departments have ended up where makes effective working harder, and it is our job to design hospitals that make sense, with clinical adjacencies that help the workforce and improve productivity and patient experience.
One of our key priorities is introducing single bedrooms for all new hospital designs, for example. We talked to stakeholders, we gathered the evidence, and we learned from it, and now we are making it a reality. Through modular processes, standardisation, and a repeatable design, we can build single rooms that are flexible enough to suit any patient group. All will have ensuites with modular washrooms, there will be modular bedheads, and even standardised patient entertainment systems through which patients can order their food and get messages about their daily agenda – who they are seeing and for what purpose.
An evolving template
Our approach, which we have called Hospital 2.0, is a template. It will evolve as we progress, and my Transformation team will be on hand to help, but we will need a clear understanding of why things need to change, based on good reason and clear evidence. We must also invest in opening new hospitals properly, and the need for expert support from the market will increase as the pace of new hospital builds increases. We’re not just talking about equipment, but also getting the buildings up and running effectively
Moving care from existing buildings to new ones requires much detailed planning. If you ramp down a service in one building, and can’t ramp it up in the new one at the same pace, patients won’t get seen, and treatments could be cancelled. The NHS can’t afford any productivity losses; it is stretched as it is, and we’re here to ease that burden, not to add to it.
Operational readiness teams need to be involved in the new hospital build at least 18 months before construction ends. How new hospitals are opened will be a crucial part of the process. This is complex, and requires real organisational skill.
Opening hospitals safely involves looking at the process not only from a clinical point of view, but also facilities management and digital commissioning, preparing the workforce, and transforming models of care in readiness for the new environment. Our challenge in the transformation process is to work with NHS hospital Trusts and the market to create a clear, evidence-based vision for care in the future, and then deliver on it to make the most of this once-in-ageneration opportunity.
The scale of the New Hospital Programme will call on the skills and expertise of companies of all sizes, across a broad range of sectors. Suppliers can register their interest by completing the Supply Market Survey, at: https://www. smartsurvey.co.uk/s/NHP-PIN/
Alternatively, if you would like to know more about the supply chain or future market engagement activity, please email the Supplier Markets Team at nhp.suppliers@nhs.net
Josie Rudman and the NHP
Josie Rudman is the New Hospital Programme’s Transformation director and Chief Nurse, ‘working to define and develop operational, digital, clinical, and workforce standards and policies to ensure that new hospitals are able to deliver transformational care’.
The national New Hospital Programme is working with the construction sector and individual NHS Trusts to deliver a programme of new development at 48 sites across England by 2030.
Josie Rudman’s team is playing a key role – in activities ranging from business cases, design, and construction, through to operational readiness and handover – of the New Hospital Programme’s schemes.
Transformation directorate teams are supporting schemes to:
Design hospitals that meet future supply and demand through demand and activity modelling.
Research and evaluate innovative approaches to service delivery.
Ensure operational readiness to open.
Josie Rudman was previously Chief Nurse and director of Infection Prevention and Control at Royal Papworth Hospital, which was rebuilt on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, and was completed and opened in 2019 with 310 beds (mostly in single en-suite rooms) for heart and lung patients.