NHS Shared Business Services (NHS SBS) has today unveiled the third generation of its Construction Consultancy framework agreement, ‘Healthcare Planning, Construction Consultancy and Ancillary Services (HPCCAS)’ with an offering that can speed up hospital builds.
The new agreement offers the NHS and other public sector organisations a compliant and cost-effective route for procuring construction-related services including architecture, civil, and structural engineering and surveying, among others.
The NHS in England has 1,500 hospitals and some buildings pre-date its creation.
And, without regular renovation the care, safety, and wellbeing of patients, hospital staff, and the public can be compromised.
Build back better
Figures from NHS Digital put the cost to eradicate the backlog of repairs and maintenance of the hospital estate at £10.2billion, more than double that of £4.7billion in 2011/12.
In response, the Government’s New Hospital Programme has committed to building 40 new hospitals by the end of the decade, backed by over £20billion of investment in hospital infrastructure.
At the centre of the programme is the ‘hospital 2.0’ concept, a vision for how hospital schemes can be delivered with greater efficiency and at reduced cost.
NHS trusts will work with a central programme team, as well as local and regional stakeholders, to design and deliver green, energy-efficient buildings through to hospitals using state-of-the-art technology to improve the health of the local population.
And the scale of the New Hospital Programme calls upon the skills of companies of all sizes, across a broad range of sectors.
NHS SBS’s HPCCAS framework agreement offers a UK-wide, comprehensive, convenient, and compliant route to find and purchase services from 179 carefully-vetted suppliers operating in the construction space, quickly and efficiently.
The framework agreement is free to use and comprises 11 distinct service types (Lots) including architectural services, civil and structural engineering, building surveyors, principal designer services, and multi-disciplinary services.
Provision for emerging services in construction
As the UK’s largest employer, the NHS is responsible for around 4% of the nation's carbon emissions. It is, therefore, committed to tackling climate change by reducing its direct emissions to net zero by 2040 and 2045 for those emissions it can influence in the wider supply chain.
And the HPCCAS framework agreement has included a specific Net Zero, Environmental Consultancy and Sustainability lot to support users achieve cost-effective carbon footprint reduction.
The Healthcare Planning lot also provides all elements of healthcare planning and strategy, including developing models of care, demand and capacity modelling, business case development, population health needs assessment, and strategic estates planning.
Melissa King, NHS SBS senior category manager for construction and infrastructure, said: “To achieve the level of investment and regeneration required across the NHS and public sector, customers need a compliant, secure, and trusted route that helps them navigate construction consultancy services through to procurement.
An efficient route to market
“To cater for regionalised procurement, 78% of the suppliers appointed are small to medium-sized enterprises, sitting alongside larger multi-disciplinary (tier 1) suppliers.
“Previous iterations of the framework agreement have achieved 10%-15% savings and, with £1.6billion expected spend via across it over the next four years, the HPCCAS framework agreement has the potential to achieve public sector savings of up £240m.”
Among the companies approved for the framework is Pick Everard.
Commenting on its inclusion across 10 of the 11 lots, Alex Hamilton-Jordan, associate director, said: “This agreement provides an efficient route to market to procure our services, and offers flexibility for organisations to adapt to meet their requirements.
“Collaboratively, we aim to deliver better, together.
“Nothing can be achieved in isolation, and key to our continued success on this framework will be to engage and work with a full range of partners throughout the supply chain, including local SMEs that can offer valued, local insight.
“We are excited and open to the opportunities this will bring to appoint our professional services, engaging public bodies through the framework agreement.”
In recent years Pick Everard has delivered a wide range of projects through the existing framework agreement, including the relocation of congenital heart services for the Leicester Children’s Hospital in 2021 – which had been threatened with closure until campaigning efforts ensured the centre received part of a £450m pot of government funding.