Robust Hospital Environments in a Changing Climate

Professor Alan Short

Co-Investigators:
Professor John Clarkson (Engineering Design Centre, Cambridge)
Professor Kevin Lomas (Professor of Building Simulation, Loughborough)

Dr Claudia Eckert (Design Group, Open University)
Dr Cath Noakes (Pathogen Control Group, University of Leeds)

Research Staff:
Dr Alistair Fair (Architecture, Cambridge)
Dr Giri Renganathan (Loughborough)
Dr Labi Ariyo (Engineering Design Centre, Cambridge)

Ph.D. researchers:
Pam Garthwaite (Open University)
Louis Fifield (Loughborough)

Co-ordinator and administrator:
Jenny Mallindine (Architecture, Cambridge)

Funded by: Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (2009-12) with additional support from NHS/Department of Health

The 'Design and Delivery of Robust Hospital Environments in a Changing Climate' (DeDeRHECC) project is investigating the design and delivery of economical and practical strategies for the adaptation of the NHS Retained Estate to increase its resilience to climate change whilst meeting the onerous carbon reduction targets set for the NHS.
The project is funded by the EPSRC under the ‘Adaptation and Resilience to a Changing Climate’ (ARCC) programme, with additional support from the Department of Health and four partner NHS Trusts.

Commencing in October 2009, the project is determining the definition of resilience in a health context and devising methods of evaluating it. Recurrent building types on the four Partner Trusts’ estates (Leicester, Bradford, Addenbrooke’s [Cambridge] and West Hertfordshire) are being identified and recurrent spaces within them catalogued. The historical development of the case study sites is being established and located within the broader context. Monitoring and critical appraisal, working on the basis of plan drawings and on-site climate recording, has captured 14 months of data, establishing the current and future resilience of representative buildings and spaces.

On the basis of the monitoring work, detailed refurbishment strategies are being devised, tested and modelled in future climates, and the potential barriers to their implementation considered. The project will develop tools and processes to aid decision making in assessing the effects of changes to the building on the functions of the hospitals. The effects of change management on the sites will be discussed. Finally, a catalogue of viable refurbishment options will be created, and the outcomes widely disseminated to academia and the health sector. Several papers are currently under review and a film is being made. The group is also advising on the design of two hospitals, and regular meetings with policymakers and stakeholders.

For more details go to http://www-edc.eng.cam.ac.uk/robusthospitals.

Click here to watch the DeDeRHECC project film.