Contractor, Henry Brothers Midlands, has been appointed to build a new £15m ‘mock hospital’ facility at Nottingham Trent University (NTU) to help train the healthcare professionals of the future.
Procured through Pagabo’s Major Works Framework, the 34,000sq ft building at NTU’s Clifton Campus will serve as the base for the university’s Institute of Health & Allied Professions, which offers a range of specialist courses such as adult and mental health nursing, paramedic science, and public health.
One entire floor will be dedicated to simulated healthcare environments including hospital wards, consultation and counselling rooms, and even a flat for home and emergency care scenarios.
The settings will also feature lifelike patient mannequins to give students the experience of working with men, women and children with a variety of injuries.
Two additional floors will provide office and flexible teaching spaces, including removable seating in lecture theatres to allow for creative learning approaches such as role play.
The facilities in this cutting-edge new building will enable us to recreate a ward setting, or a persons’ home environment, so students can practice and apply the skills they are learning in a safe way and in a realistic context, as well as creating scenarios for students that may be rare in a real-world situation
The centre will enable NTU to equip future healthcare professionals with the knowledge and skills needed for modern healthcare.
Ian Taylor, managing director of Henry Brothers Midlands, said: “We are proud to have been selected to build this facility, which will have such an important role to play in training future generations of healthcare professionals.
“We have successfully partnered with Nottingham Trent University on a number of projects in recent years, helping to create first-class facilities for a range of disciplines, including a new £23m engineering building and the £9m Enterprise Innovation Centre, which is currently being built, and we are delighted to have been appointed on this latest state-of-the-art scheme.”
Dr Anne Felton, head of the Institute of Health & Allied Professions, added: “Contemporary registered healthcare professionals are required to be dynamic and flexible. As well as providing compassionate care, they need to be able to think critically, make complex decisions, and lead.
“Fostering these skills in the next generation of nurses, paramedics and allied health professionals requires universities to use a range of teaching and learning strategies which complement and enhance the time students spend in practice during their courses.
Fostering these skills in the next generation of nurses, paramedics and allied health professionals requires universities to use a range of teaching and learning strategies which complement and enhance the time students spend in practice
“The facilities in this cutting-edge new building will enable us to recreate a ward setting, or a persons’ home environment, so students can practice and apply the skills they are learning in a safe way and in a realistic context, as well as creating scenarios for students that may be rare in a real-world situation.”
The scheme is being led by NTU’s capital projects group within the estates department.
As well as main contractor, the delivery team includes external project managers, Edge, together with architects, Pick Everard; and Turner & Townsend; Atkins; and Waterman Group.
Work is expected to get under way on site this month with completion due by January 2022.
