Healthcare Team Update
14 January 2021
Healthcare was very much a feature of the national news in 2020 and that is no different for the round-up of DKA projects in 2020.
The year started with us being appointed to take over the architectural services for the new Integrated Care Centre in Devizes, a Procure 22 project between Kier and NHS property Services. The 1,588sqm, two storey building will be one of the first of this new type of healthcare facility bringing a wide range of services into the community. Filling a role between a GP surgery and a community hospital, the building has no wards but provides a range of outpatient and GP services. Accommodation includes a number of shared use Consulting / Examination / Physiotherapy Rooms, a dedicated Treatment Room, Audiology Room, Podiatry Room, Physiotherapy Group Room and two Phlebotomy Rooms in addition to generous patient waiting areas and support accommodation.
The start of 2020 also saw the completion of the refurbishment and reconfiguration of Ward 2 at Pyrland House in Taunton, a dementia-friendly mental health facility. This project transformed the outdated the ward; bringing light to the dark corridors, creating a larger staff base, providing en-suite facilities to all bedrooms, bringing unused rooms back into service and the creation a new ‘low stimulus suite’, for patients experiencing high levels of distress. Although the interventions were simple, the transformation in the overall feeling of the ward environment was significant.
We always welcome the opportunity to re-visit completed DKA buildings and were pleased during the course of the year to be asked back to a number of the Community Hospitals we had designed to get involved in designing a number of extensions and alterations. These include:
- An extension to the Endoscopy Unit at Bridgwater Hospital (which has just been granted planning approval), providing a second Endoscopy Room and separate Treatment Room to provide Nasoscopy and Esophagael Monometry services.
- Alterations within the main Bridgwater Hospital to convert some office accommodation provide additional clinical spaces.
- Adding an enclosure for additional mechanical plant to Minehead Hospital to increase the range of services that can be provided within the Day Surgery Operating Theatre.
The end of the year provided us with a great opportunity to assist NHS Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire Clinical Commissioning Group in laying out a number of new Coronavirus (COVID-19) Vaccination Centres across the region. The NHS have been under extreme pressure throughout the last year and will continue to be for some time in the future so we are very proud to have been involved in helping them taking steps to protect the nation.
As we start 2021 we are hopeful for the Devizes Integrated Care Centre project getting both approval for its Planning Application from the Local Authority and for its Full Business Case from NHS England. This will mean that construction can get underway enabling the centre to open to the public in 2022.
Under the umbrella of the healthcare team we are also starting a new project in Weston-super-Mare to design an extension for a stand alone unit attached to one of the larger Care Homes in the town. This is made more complex by a tight site, being within the setting of a conservation area and position of a large protected tree in the middle of the site, however we are hopeful we will be able to design a scheme that meets the clients requirements and can obtain planning approval from the local authority.
We are also involved in a number of feasibility studies throughout the local area which we are hopeful will translate into some new Healthcare projects as the year progresses, however we always welcome any new opportunities that may also come along.
