Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 12
12
Rejected
NHP's Hospital 2.0 standard design development is significantly behind schedule, now expected May 2024.
Conclusion
In practice, these future time and cost savings also need to be set against the time and cost taken to develop the new approach and additional costs as a result of inflation while schemes wait to proceed. The Infrastructure and Projects Authority recommended that the NHP team should complete its standardised design by the end of 2022, for use in early proof of concept testing. Instead, the NHP team plans to release the template design, known as Hospital 2.0, in stages during 2023, with the final release by December 2023. However, by July 2023 the NHP team was running around five months behind schedule.21 DHSC told us that some elements of the design had been finished and that the complete package would be ready by May 2024.22 The C&AG’s report of July 2023 highlighted that there were delays in recruiting a temporary design team of up to 300 specialist designers. Remarkably, in September, DHSC told us that it had now recruited the team it needed to complete Hospital 2.0.23 16 C&AG’s Report, paras 3.24 and 3.25 17 Letter from Shona Dunn, DHSC dated 26 September 2023 18 C&AG’s Report, para 17 and Figure 12 19 Q 29; C&AG’s Report, para 3.6 20 Q 29; C&AG’s Report, para 3.6 21 C&AG’s Report, paras 3.8 and 3.9 22 Q 84 23 Q 31; C&AG’s Report, para 3.9 12 The New Hospital Programme
Government Response Summary
The government disagrees with the committee's implicit recommendation regarding delays, stating it will test Hospital 2.0 with RAAC schemes, acknowledging construction is unlikely to start in 2024 but highlighting ongoing design and prototyping work for late 2024.
Government Response
Rejected
HM Government
Rejected
The government disagrees with the Committee’s recommendation. The government agrees that NHP should test Hospital 2.0, its standardised approach to building hospitals, and intends to do so at the earliest opportunity within one of the RAAC schemes, given the importance of prioritising these to protect patient and staff safety. However, construction is unlikely to start in 2024. Consistent evidence from major programmes demonstrates beginning construction ahead of achieving sufficient maturity of design ends up costing time and money. The NHP is however conducting deep dive reviews into how Hospital 2.0 would work in a variety of schemes, and working closely with clinicians, NHS trusts, Royal Colleges, patient and public groups, and the supply chain to gather best practice to include in Hospital 2.0. The standardised reference designs are being tested for fit against the constraints and contexts of specific types of hospital schemes, including low-rise and high-rise hospitals. This will provide learning on how Hospital 2.0 designs may need to be adapted when applied to other settings. The NHP intends to test and further develop Hospital 2.0 designs through more established prototyping facilities from late 2024, subject to business case processes and approvals, alongside ongoing design work and anthropometric studies. These prototyping facilities aim to engage patients, clinicians and manufacturers in improving the designs of key elements, such as operating theatres, and aid training and familiarisation to support commissioning and efficient roll-out of services in new hospitals. The NHP will feed back all learning from different schemes as aspects of Hospital 2.0 designs are applied into a continuous learning process. In 2023, the NHP launched a library of Hospital 2.0 products to trusts, external parties and industry, supporting planning and scheme development, before a detailed release of Hospital 2.0 in May 2024.