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With the £800m future hospital on a tight timescale to welcome patients by 2026, a strict construction schedule accompanied by modern building methods are set to be used to get it up as quickly as possible.
Here, Express lays out the full construction schedule and the building methods that will be used...
From operating theatre layouts to wires, lights and walls, the Our Hospital design team has identified a number of parts of the Overdale-based health facility that could be built using so-called ‘modern methods of construction' (MMC), and RokFCC has already spoken to potential suppliers.
Express revealed in March 2020 that the Government had asked the hospital’s future developer to consider “alternative construction techniques”, including pre-fabrication and modular construction - as a way of speeding up the process, and getting around problems caused by the island’s “limited” number of construction workers.
The advice was laid out in planning guidance – a draft document explaining what issues will need to be overcome by the developer of the future hospital.
Released in July, a detailed architectural report spanning nearly 400 pages laid out the construction methods the team will be using, as well as the demolition and building 'strategy' to make sure the one-stop-shop facility, if granted planning permission, can open its doors as soon as possible.
Pictured: MMC favour pre-manufacturing to traditional methods of construction.
Sometimes known as ‘flatpack construction’, the modular method is becoming increasingly popular around the world as a way of surmounting productivity and quality issues within the sector.
Explaining the process and advantages of the method, Jersey health officials explained to Express last year: “Modular construction’ is a term used to describe the use of factory-produced pre-engineered building units that are delivered to site and assembled as large volumetric components or as substantial elements of a building. The modular units may form complete rooms, parts of rooms, or separate highly serviced units such as toilets or lifts."
They continued: “The use of modular construction for health sector buildings is significant as it requires highly complex services and medical installations that can be commissioned and tested off-site: this can deliver advantages of speed of construction and reduce on-site disturbance and disruption.”
Pictured: Operating theatres are among the parts of the hospital that could be standardised.
The Design Report says that the design team want as many aspects of the hospital project as possible to be standardised.
This includes standardised details, room layouts, products, components and installation methods.
Operating theatres are among the parts of the hospital that could be standardised, as well as bathroom pods, stairs and lifts.
Lights, toilet fittings, wires and pipes could also be delivered through MMC.
With MMC having an impact on the design of facilities, the ‘Our Hospital’ team considered that the best way of ensuring the different products, components and solutions were fully co-ordinated was to engage with the supply chain as early as possible.
As such, RokFCC spoke with and issued expressions of interest to numerous modular building and room providers whilst the report was being drawn up.
However and “unfortunately” as the document notes, only two companies returned the expression of interest: Caledonian Building Systems and MTX.
The former is based in Carlton-on-Trent in Nottinghamshire and has been delivering buildings using offsite manufacturing processes for over 50 years.
Among the projects they worked on feature classrooms, health facilities and offices, as well as medium to high rise hotels, student halls and residential blocks.
Meanwile, MTX Contracts specialises in “fast-track healthcare building projects” in the UK.
Based in Handforth, the family-run construction and engineering company has been building operating theatres for the NHS and the private sector since 1983.
They also provide ward accommodation, MRI and CT equipment, as well as outpatient departments and ambulatory care wards.
Pictured: Plans for the hospital are due to be submitted in November.
While only two companies expressed interest, the design team said the information gained was “very useful” in helping develop the strategy for the next stage of the project.
They have decided to produce a traditional design solution, and then invite the two potential supply chain partners to tender to deliver elements of the facilities through modern methods of construction.
This approach, they said, ensures that the design programme and the planning application date will not be compromised.
It is currently expected that the planning application will be submitted in November.
If the project gets the go-ahead from Planning, the key construction phases will be: the refurbishment of Les Quennevais and migrating staff and equipment there as a temporary replacement for Overdale’s services, realigning lower Westmount Road, demolishing existing buildings at Overdale, realigning upper Westmount Road, and finally constructing the main hospital.
Among the first priorities on the list is the creation of staff quarters for those on the construction team.
At the same Westmount Road realignment works get underway, contractors will work on creating a welfare ‘village’ for staff on the site of the proposed hospital carpark.
Pictured: Plans for the staff zone.
This should be able to serve 600 staff, including drying rooms with lockers, separated toilets, showers, canteen and induction rooms.
“Car parking spaces for staff and operatives will be provided within the site avoiding unnecessary nuisance to the neighbourhood,” the design team notes. “These will be located adjacent south of the cemetery, which will provide some distance from the site offices/welfare to the cemetery, resulting in more privacy.”
According to the design team, the roadworks – described as a “complex road and civil programme” involving electrics, drainage, gas and telecoms cabling – are crucial “to allow the main hospital works to commence.”
Realigning lower Westmount Road is predicted to take eight to nine months, with works not starting until the site has been enclosed with a security fence.
The team describe a “milestone” in the programme as having the main access route open on Westmount Road within six months.
Pictured: The "complex" process to realign the road.
To complete the work within that tight timescale, a “full road closure” is planned, with traffic management “employed to bring residents located close to Ocean Wharf Apartments and the Overdale Hospital site (Existing) via Tower Road heading south along the existing Westmount Rd.”
On completion of lower Westmount Road and it becoming open to the public to walk, cycle or drive along once more, public access will be closed to the upper end.
“This in turn will allow the best solution for traffic management during the life cycle of the project and the ability to provided crossover points for the operatives walking on segregated walkways,” the team say.
At this point, around September 2022, it’s also hoped that they can start work on the proposed multi-storey carpark, which should be finished by March 2024.
It’s hoped that work on the main hospital will start in February 2023.
First will be the earth works and foundations, which will start in February and March 2023 respectively, and finish by January the following year.
The beginning of above-ground work is likely to slightly overlap, beginning in May 2023.
Façades should be complete by April 2025, and roof works by October of that year.
A race then begins to complete fit-out, commissioning and finish the external landscaping by autumn 2026.
The Mental Health Unit building – whose construction starts in June 2023 – and the Energy Centre are expected to be finished much earlier, however, in June 2025.
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