Financial close achieved on largest PFI mental healthcare project in Scotland - 22 June 2010
Atkins, the UK’s largest engineering and design consultancy, is providing multidisciplinary services on a new £95.4 million contract to deliver a 231-bed state-of-the-art mental healthcare development for NHS Tayside which reached financial close on Friday. The project is Scotland’s biggest PFI-funded mental healthcare scheme and will transform client care. The contract is being led by the taycare consortium, comprising Morgan Sindall Investments and Robertson Capital Projects.
Ian Tempest, healthcare director for Atkins’ Design & Engineering business, said: “This patient-centric project will change the environment in which mental healthcare is delivered in Tayside and the north of Scotland by providing a variety of well-lit, accessible spaces within a safe and secure facility.
“To achieve this, Atkins’ architects, engineers and designers worked in partnership with patient and community representatives and healthcare professionals to ensure that the design met everyone’s requirements. The challenge was to combine a technically functional design with a solution that was architecturally attractive but at the same time creating a secure and appealing environment appropriate for the diverse range of mental health patients.”
The project, being delivered by construction company Morgan Sindall, will provide three new mental health facilities on NHS Tayside’s hospital sites of Murray Royal in Perth and Stracathro in Angus. The development will provide integrated campuses for General Adult Psychiatry, Psychiatry of Old Age and Medium Secure patients.
Atkins is delivering services including architecture, civil/structural engineering, medical planning, acoustic design, ecology and landscape architecture, fire engineering and geotechnical engineering.
“We selected Atkins because of the company’s experience of this type of major healthcare scheme,” explains Scott Wilson, business development director for Morgan Sindall. “Since our appointment as preferred bidder last summer, we have been working closely to develop the plans for this exciting scheme.”
Following taycare’s appointment as preferred bidder in 2009, the consortium have progressed detailed design, the securing of statutory approvals and funding arrangements for the development.
Construction is due to commence on both sites shortly, with phased completion in 2011/2012. Atkins and Morgan Sindall are now exploring joint opportunities to develop similar mental health services from their wide UK resource base and locations.
Ends
For more information:
Shona Tait
Communications Officer
+44 (0)141 220 2006
Shona.Tait@atkinsglobal.com
Notes to editors:
Atkins (www.atkinsglobal.com) is the UK’s largest engineering and design consultancy and the world’s 11th largest design firm. We have the depth and breadth of expertise to respond to the most technically challenging and time critical infrastructure projects and the urgent transition to a low-carbon economy. Whether it’s the concept for a new skyscraper, the upgrade of a rail network, the modelling of a flood defence system or the improvement of a management process, we plan, design and enable solutions.
Recent projects include:
• Major infrastructure works, such as the design and programme management of the civil works for the Dubai Metro red and green lines;
• High profile transport planning and urban design – our innovative scheme to deliver a diagonal crossing at London’s Oxford Circus has helped tackle the problem of pedestrian crowding;
• Key rail projects – providing architectural and engineering design services on London’s Crossrail, Europe’s biggest civil engineering project, and designing stations, tunnelling and track systems on Gautrain, South Africa’s first high speed line;
• Multidisciplinary building design – North Wood Primary School in Darlington is an exemplar project which raises standards for environmental design and community engagement;
• Vital water and environmental projects – as part of a joint venture, Atkins is providing technical assistance to the Water Supply and Sanitation Sector Reform Programme in Nigeria, which will benefit up to three million people.
Atkins was named Consultancy of the Year in the CIBSE Low Carbon Performance Awards 2010; received the first ever certification of the Carbon Trust Standard awarded to an engineering consultancy in the construction sector; and was named among The Times Top 50 Companies Where Women Want to Work 2009 and The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers 2009. Atkins was also construction and civil engineering sector winner for the fifth consecutive year in the Target National Graduate Recruitment Awards 2010 and was awarded a RoSPA Gold Award 2010 for excellence in control of health and safety in the workplace.
Atkins is the official engineering design services provider for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.