£170k refurbishment and reconfiguration to create additional clinical rooms

Customer: Portchester Practice

NHSPS representatives: Susan Swaffer (Regional Partnership Director), Paul Beach (Senior Construction Manager) and Jason Doughty (Senior Property Manager)

Partners: DM Habens and BAQUS Group Ltd

As a result of the first national lockdown the Speech and Language team based at Portchester Health Centre decided to move the services to another location. This left a block of rooms in the corner of the Health Centre empty which coincided nicely with the GP practices’ previous interest in increasing their clinical services.

However, the rooms needed some work to them to make them suitable for clinical use as their poor condition and location make it difficult to attract new tenants. Indeed, the rooms were cut off from the main area of the building and would therefore prohibit easy patient access and the rooms’ décor and finishings were also poor.

We suggested that if structural alterations to the building were carried out, we could create suitable access to the other clinical rooms and the waiting area and turn the four small rooms into three compliant clinical spaces. We then asked the practice if would they be interested in taking a lease on the rooms.

Draft plans were produced we provided a rent calculation which the practice used in their business case to the CCG for an agreement for rent reimbursement.

Once this was agreed, we produced an IAP which was approved releasing the funds (£170,000) necessary to carry out the works.

Works commenced to refurbish the health centre in September 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. We created the three new consulting rooms by installing new partitions and refurbished the interior including adding internal finishes to walls, floors and ceilings and undertaking associated mechanical and electrical works.

As the project was nearing completion the first of the Covid vaccines were being approved.

Three modern clinical rooms have been created, increasing capacity within the practice to enable more patients to receive care in a modern, welcoming environment.

The health centre has been designated as a vaccination site so the three extra rooms now enable more patients can be vaccinated at their local practice.

Despite the challenges associated with COVID-19, the works were completed on time with no impact to patient care.