“We Make Lives Easier”: Healthcare Delivery At Walker Sime

For 25 years, Walker Sime has been at the heart of major commercial, residential, regeneration and infrastructure projects across the North West and beyond. Healthcare has long been a part of that mix, and with major capital projects underway at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Royal Blackburn Teaching Hospital, Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Greater Manchester Mental Health, it’s a growing part of the business. We sat down with Andy Hopwood, Associate Director – Project Management and Healthcare Lead at Walker Sime to discuss the Walker Sime approach to healthcare delivery.

Why did you get involved in healthcare construction delivery?

I’ve worked across many sectors, and you feel a huge amount of pride in handing over any project, but there’s definitely something different about healthcare. When you hand over an MRI scanner facility, for example, you can’t help but think ‘my family might need that one day’. You aim to make a difference with every project, but when you work in the health service that difference is just a little more immediate, obvious, and powerful. It benefits everyone.

How do you approach each healthcare project?

If you’ve walked into any modern healthcare facility recently, you’ll see the effort that goes into creating spaces that don’t look or feel like a hospital. We work with design teams to create spaces that help remove tension for patients and create calming environments. That all starts with the healthcare professionals who’ll be using the space. We will engage the clinical end users and often the service users themselves to understand what they want and need from the area, and then we’ll draw on the knowledge of the design team to combine those wants and needs with regulatory requirements and industry best practice.

As an example, I was working on a PET/MR scanner project [in this instance the PET scanner was to be used initially as a diagnostic tool and studies in to dementia] and we brought in an architect who specialised in dementia design. That sensitivity in construction is particularly important when you’re dealing with mental health because something as simple as a colour choice can affect the way a patient responds to the finished project.

Our team includes an associate of the Designer Mental Health Network and also specialists in space utilisation and we commit to working with experts to create spaces that make a positive difference.

How do you manage the fact that healthcare construction has so many stakeholders?

It’s one of the elements I enjoy most actually, the fact that you have such a varied, diverse group of stakeholders.

If you were developing an office block in a city centre, for example, you’d have numerous stakeholders – the owner of the land, neighbouring properties, Highways, the Environment Agency etc – but when you work on a healthcare project the number of stakeholders is just so much greater.

Infection control is enormously important, in terms of reducing the risk of spreading infection around the hospital through your presence and activities, but also in terms of ensuring your design incorporates enough wash basins, clean areas and so on. Security is a major stakeholder. So is fire. Lots of hospital projects are funded by charitable groups, so you’ll want to include them in the discussions about the projects they’re helping to make possible. Not every stakeholder wants to be involved, but every stakeholder should be kept informed and given the opportunity to get involved. It’s not uncommon to have 20+ stakeholders on a healthcare project.

Often, the way you engage is just as important as who you engage with. When your stakeholders are extremely busy, they don’t always have time for a meeting, but they do have time for a conversation if you’re prepared to fit in with their schedule. It’s not ideal, but I’ve held ‘meetings’ with people who run critical care units that have taken place walking down corridors because there simply wasn’t any other way to ensure they were included in the discussion. It’s that effort to engage your stakeholders that makes a real difference for clients.

What are some of the challenges you’ve overcome in your time within healthcare construction?

I think the biggest challenge was being asked to complete a major COVID ward in under four months. I remember getting a call from a CEO of a hospital trust on the last day of September 2021 and he just said,

“We need more capacity to cope with COVID. We’ve got a space in A&E that we don’t use especially well. Could we build a majors department in there? I need it to be complete for Christmas.”

I asked how far the project had progressed and he said, “It hasn’t progressed anywhere. No one’s looked at it. No one’s working on it. It’s just an idea.”

That “idea” turned into a reality in just over 3 months. After the meeting I made some phone calls, brought a design team and user frameworks together very quickly, and the new department opened on 15 January 2022.

We’ve already talked about the number of stakeholders being a big differentiator between healthcare and other construction work. What are the other major differences when approaching NHS work?

Value for money is critical in every project but it takes on another level of importance when you’re working on NHS projects.

But ‘value’ is more than ‘low cost’. It’s looking for ways to add value, it’s about seeing the bigger picture and the skill to see the interdependencies and connections that can enable you to drive greater value from a project.

And it’s about always finding bandwidth in your planning for the small details. These are the things that staff really appreciate and ultimately help make life easier for them.

What’s your vision for the healthcare service line at Walker Sime?

Right now, we’ve got people involved in capital works projects at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Royal Blackburn Teaching Hospital and Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Greater Manchester Mental Health, building on work we’ve done in healthcare facilities across the North West. The vision is to have capital works in progress at every trust in the North West of England.

I want us to be top of mind for the £500,000, the £5 million and the £50+ million projects because we have the experience and capability to deliver them. We’ve got specific expertise in things like acute areas and mental health. And through projects like the COVID ward, we’ve demonstrated that we can deliver.

What makes Walker Sime unique?

I think there are a number of factors. Lots of operators in the health space only do health construction. Although we’ve got extensive experience in health care delivery, we work cross-sector, so when we’re faced with a health challenge, we’re able to look across industry to find solutions and then find ways to apply those in a health setting.

That cross-sector working also means our understanding of the end-user impact of what we do is constantly evolving. We’re extremely conscious of the fact that, to an end user, ‘project success’ can be very different depending on their perspective, and we’re particularly good at responding to that.  We also work across the private and public sector, enabling us to cross-pollinate best practice and demonstrate our ability to work to tight deadlines and deliver on budget.

What truly sets us apart is the experience of working with us. Once a project is complete, it’s often the way it was managed, the people involved, and how smooth the process felt that clients remember most. We are committed to always doing what’s right for our clients, offering clear, concise, and positive leadership on every project. Our goal is not just to ensure smooth delivery but to create a collaborative and enjoyable environment where everyone can bring their best selves to the table.

We spend a disproportionate amount of time getting people onboard and that creates an atmosphere of success. When it’s all done, our clients feel that they were involved throughout, that we did it together and that, in what can be a stressful environment, we made their lives easier. I think the final element is the DNA of Walker Sime itself. We were born in the North West. Our families use the healthcare facilities we create. Ultimately, we are the beneficiaries of the projects we complete. So we have a real hunger to not just deliver but to deliver well.

Read more about our Health Construction Consultancy service here.

And if you’re ready to discuss your healthcare project, get in touch with Andy today at ahopwood@wordpress-657849-6256491.cloudwaysapps.com.