Design for healing
Hospitals and healthcare facilities play a central role in today’s society, providing everything from emergency assistance to long term care. The UK’s NHS is the largest publicly funded health service in the world dealing with 1 million patients every 36 hours and employing 1.5 million people across the nation1. For patients and healthcare professionals alike it is important they have the use of modern, high quality facilities.
To achieve this, hospitals must be able to cope with the effects of climate change (such as hotter summers and wetter winters), signifi cantly reduce their carbon footprint and provide a blueprint for sustainable development within their communities. Those involved must also ensure new facilities are designed to maximise patient comfort and minimise staff stress levels.
The Procure 21 framework was rolled out nationally in September 2003, aiming to achieve excellence in the construction and refurbishment of NHS healthcare facilities in the UK. To date over 200 NHS schemes have been delivered with 97% of projects on time and budget. Procure 21+ is the successor to this framework and will continue to ensure excellence in healthcare construction upon its commencement in late 2010.
1Source: http://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/aboutnhs/Pages/About.aspx
