The development of Birmingham’s first purpose-built children’s hospital is an important step in Birmingham Children’s Hospital NHS Foundation Trust future strategy. The Trust fully recognises that 2022, the very earliest it could be built by, is too long to wait; for that reason the Next Generation project was launched in April 2014 and will form a key element of the Trust’s operational and strategic plan for the next ten years up until 2024.
The Legacy Project will provide state of the art, flexible and empathetic healthcare accommodation for a range of children’s acute services, for their families and carers and for staff and visitors. The proposed new facility will provide much needed inpatient and outpatient haematology and oncology care, including Teenage Cancer Trust and BMT, along with 3 theatres and a surgical ward, and a new rare diseases department.
The DQI Concept Design workshop considered valuable in ensuring the Client and Design team were aware of the aspects of design that should be taken account of as design developed. The design proposals were scored quite highly by participants. A large number of positive comments on the scheme indicated a strong level of support from stakeholders. A few opportunities were identified across a wide range of areas which indicated there were no major issues found.
During the DQI Mid Design workshop, the Architect presented the key elements of the design approach and described how the new facility would relate to the current main hospital and how it might tie in with future development. Generally the group judged positively all elements of the project design to date. The scheme is progressing well, given the restrictions of a tight site and complex internal functional requirements, including the need for considerable future flexibility.