A Leicester architects and masterplanners has launched a joint venture with an international specialist health planners, architects and clinical interior designers.
Stephen George + Partners, based on the outskirts of Leicester, is working with TAHPI – Total Alliance Health Partners International – to work on a modelling system to help health services plan out things such as hospitals and health centres.
Working together they hope to be able to provide an “affordable and sustainable” solution to modern health service needs.
SGP has built a reputation working on office buildings, homes, bus stations and airport buildings over the years.
TAHPI, which has offices in London, the Middle East, Australia, Malaysia and India, specialises in healthcare design, including major hospitals, emergency departments, research facilities and rehabilitation centres.
Steve Batson, studio director at SGP, said: "The NHS and private healthcare provision in the UK is facing an unprecedented challenge that will impact services for many years to come.
“This TAHPI and SGP joint venture will offer providers the ability to deliver necessary facilities exactly where they are needed, through an efficient, flexible and budget-conscious strategic tool around the patient journey: right space, right place, right time.
"We've worked in the UK healthcare sector for over 20 years and it has long been clear that the NHS needs better strategic tools to deliver an ever-increasing breadth of services through a sprawling and sometimes out-of-date estate.
“This joint venture will make available a state-of-the-art methodology that analyses current and future population needs against existing healthcare facilities and assets to highlight where there are gaps between patient need and clinical services."
The new joint venture will see them look at the kind of facilities that are needed, from doctors' surgeries to specialist neurosurgery units, as well as where they might be best located to fit demand.
It will also allow healthcare providers to use data to compare different options.
Rick Shands, UK director at TAHPI, said: "We model existing healthcare provisions and map these against populations using available health data such as health related groups in the UK to determine current and future over- and under-supplies.
“This analysis then integrates into our rapid briefing software that is based on the locality's regulations together with our own International health facility guidelines.
“There can be various “scenarios” for deploying the needed augmentations to facilities.
“By testing these at a “desk-top” level, we can follow through and test capital costs as well as modelling personnel costs at an early stage, making for better-informed decision making."
