Project summary

Honoured as the overall winner at the Construction Excellence Awards 2017, the GRAHAM-BAM Healthcare Partnership’s Inpatient Ward Block at the Ulster Hospital has set the standard in healthcare construction.

Designed to exceed the highest building and infection control requirements and incorporating input from over 200 user groups, the state-of-the-art £85 million Inpatient Ward Block is dramatically enriching the working environment of dedicated staff while enhancing the lives of patients on a daily basis.

In addition, the Partnership is constructing the Hospital’s new £95m Acute Services Block adjacent to the Inpatient Ward Block. The topping out ceremony was held in January 2018 with the ambitious second phase project expected for completion in August 2019.

The detail

Constructed to an unrivalled standard, work on the £85 million project began in June 2013 before opening its doors to widespread acclaim in April 2017. The seven storey spacious building, designed to maximise natural light, features a procedural area on the ground floor and four floors of 288 ensuite bedrooms within 12 inpatient wards.

The transformative new build, which received a Gold Award from the Considerate Constructors Scheme, and is BREEAM ‘excellent’, replaced a stagnant ward built in the 1960s, and showcases innovation designed to enhance the lives of patients. Low level lighting that is red at night to encourage sleep before gradually turning blue to assist patients waking up naturally in the morning is just a small snapshot of our revolutionary approach.

A commitment to robust collaboration between GRAHAM-BAM, the client, user-groups, the design team and subcontractors ultimately ensured the final build is the benchmark for future healthcare projects.

• Digital Solution

  Throughout the initial phase and, now, during phase 2 of this Ulster Hospital project, BIM 360 Field has given our project teams the advantage of monitoring and managing Health and Safety, quality and on-site progress in real time. As a result, our teams access models, drawings and other statistical data, which inform their construction decisions. The functionality of BIM 360 Field, also enables them to attach photographs to site diaries and sign off digitised checklists, while the collaborative nature of the tools ensures that all parties, including sub-contractors, are updated in real-time of design changes. In addition, Navisworks 3D is also implemented on this contract. It uses Clash Detection to uncover clashes between different models or areas of the models. This in turn has saved time and reduced costs.