Sandwell and West Midlands Hospitals NHS Trust provide general acute care to a population of around 500,000 in Sandwell, western and central Birmingham, as well as some specialised services for a wider population. Midland Metropolitan Hospital is an integrated care organisation which delivers acute and community care in west Birmingham and Sandwell. The Trust is currently delivering inpatient acute care from 2 ageing hospitals 5 miles apart, and these are to be replaced by a “state of the art” acute hospital and community facilities throughout the catchment area. The new acute hospital is approximately 80.000m2 and will contain 670 beds at a capital cost of £353m.

The Trust owns the site of 6.76 hectares and demolition of the existing buildings completed in August 2014. The site was a brown field and was not used by the NHS. The new hospital will enable the acute hospital facilities to be consolidated on one site. The Grove Lane site falls within the Smethwick Area Action plan and the site can be developed as a stand alone development. The hospital was granted outline planning approval in May 2013. The design vision for the hospital was developed by a group of stakeholders early in the project, has continued to evolve, and a set of protocols was confirmed by the Design Vision Group in 2010.

The primary requirements of the Trust are to move to a single site which provides high patient satisfaction, and is a building in which staff want to work. The project must deliver the design vision, assist with the regeneration of the area, be sustainable and affordable.

This project has been in planning for several years hence it was not appropriate to use DQI stage 1 process although key members of the project team have used the headings to determine a benchmark. The Trust has developed an exemplar design which provides comprehensive details of its requirements and expectations. Following the initial workshop and further detailed meetings with lead clinicians, a supplementary brief was provided to the bidding contractors.