The National Treatment Centre – Fife Orthopaedics is a purpose-built clinical facility forming part of the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy.
It provides a new centre of excellence for orthopaedics in the region, replacing and expanding the existing facilities to meet the rising demand for sophisticated operations and other elective treatments in this speciality.
It is part of a national network of treatment centres delivered through Health Facilities Scotland (HFS), Frameworks Scotland 3 each offering its own specialisations.
The centre is set over three floors and offers treatment on both an inpatient and outpatient basis. The ground floor houses an outpatient department and consulting rooms, the second floor contains a ward and short-stay unit with 33 bedrooms, and on the top floor there are three operating theatres, a recovery area and an adjacent staff area.
The footprint of the new building also includes a therapeutic garden and other green spaces, to enhance both the patient and staff experience.
The building is designed to be welcoming, accessible and easy to use for staff, patients and visitors, with separate routes for the public and orthopaedic patients ensuring a degree of privacy. The design also includes flexibility in the layout and allows for future expansion, should it be required.
Business support services and project management
We provided business case support from the project’s inception, advising NHS Fife from the initial agreement stage through to approval of the full business case. We also provided project management services up to the completion of construction.
Construction was carried out under HFS Frameworks Scotland 2 using the NEC3 form of contract with a single source principal supply chain partner (PSCP). Our role involved regular attendance on site and liaison with both HFS and the PSCP to ensure work packages were completed within the agreed timescale and budget.
Operating theatre and X-ray equipment was provided by specialist medical technology firms, appointed directly by NHS Fife.
This required considerable coordination on our part between the equipment installers and the main contractor to facilitate access, agree responsibility at technical interfaces and other aspects associated with working on a shared site with split accountability.
Unprecedented market conditions
The advent of the pandemic, negative consequences of Brexit and the war in Ukraine created unexpected additional work package costs.
We provided support to NHS Fife throughout the subsequent discussions, taking advice from HFS and the Central Legal Office to make informed contractual decisions relating to these unprecedented market conditions.
Construction on a ‘live’ site
The construction took place on the existing Victoria Hospital campus, which continued to operate normally. Scheduling of works therefore had to take account of these live hospital conditions, particularly as the new building’s services were being connected to the existing infrastructure.
We coordinated and facilitated regular meetings with senior medical staff, estates managers, emergency services, bus companies and other users of the site to ensure that upcoming site works and deliveries were discussed between all relevant parties, with the aim of minimising disruption to existing healthcare delivery.
Patients accepted into new facility
The opening of the centre was delayed by five months, owing to circumstances surrounding the pandemic, but the project was completed within the agreed revised budget.
The first patient was accepted into the facility on 20 March 2023 and the building was officially opened four days later by Nicola Sturgeon, in what was her final public engagement as Scotland’s First Minister.
Head of Capital Planning and Project Director, NHS Fife
Credits
Architect NORR
Contractor GRAHAM
Project Manager Thomson Gray
Services Engineer Rybka
Structural Engineer Fairhurst
Quantity Surveyor Gardiner & Theobald
NEC Supervisor AECOM
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