Planning consultancy Lichfields has released the results of its research, finding that local plans for health facilities are consistently under-delivering
The risk of delays is increasing as healthcare planning continues to overlook estate requirements, leading to a misalignment between investment and delivery. The report Strategic Planning for Healthcare Estates highlights the need for stronger coordination between national and local policy to address this gap.
Just over half of planning aims to improve healthcare
Since March 2020, 88 local plans have been adopted; however, only 63% include a strategic objective on health or healthcare, and just 26% contain site-specific policies or allocations for new health facilities.
This gap indicates a systemic misalignment between planning policy and healthcare investment. Significant projects within the development pipeline—including those in the New Hospitals Programme—are advancing without the necessary planning status or site designation, exposing them to avoidable delays and delivery risks.
The timing of this shortfall is critical. Government funding for healthcare infrastructure is at a historic high: the National Planning Policy Framework references ‘health’ or ‘healthier’ 39 times, while the Spending Review has committed £4bn per year to the Department of Health and Social Care, alongside £30bn over the next five years for the NHS estate. Without stronger integration between planning policy and capital investment, however, there is a risk that much of this funding will be underutilised or delayed.
Robert Dibden, planning director at Lichfields, said: “With the largest ever health capital budget now in place, the emphasis must be on delivery. Yet our research shows that many local plans are not always keeping pace with this new policy and investment landscape. Too often, there is a disconnect between health infrastructure strategies and the planning frameworks designed to support them. Closing that gap is essential if we are to see new hospitals and neighbourhood health facilities delivered on the ground at the pace patients need.”
New designs can help struggling hospitals
Writing for PBC Today in November last year, director at Pick Everard Devika Parmar discussed how incorporating purpose into design can help bolster and relieve NHS staff, who feel ‘brunt out and undervalued.’
Devika wrote: “Stress and burnout are, sadly, nothing new within healthcare. In fact, burnout was first described as an occupation phenomenon in healthcare workers in 2019, when the World Health Organisation (WHO) defined it as feelings of being depleted and exhausted, difficulty concentrating, reduced professional efficacy, job cynicism, and being critical of one’s work.
“The most recent set of issues are somewhat linked to the long-lasting ramifications caused by the pandemic. In June 2021, a report from the House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee concluded that NHS staff burnout is a widespread reality today. Staff burnout and sickness doubled to five per cent between March 2020 and June 2021, while the impacts of family and loved ones not being able to visit care settings during lockdowns were also stated to have taken their toll on the mental health of staff.”
She continues: “Taking in perspectives from around the world, in Sweden there is a growing trend for protecting staff spaces as sanctuaries of wellbeing. At the Minneshälsan memory clinic in Malmö for example, a rooftop garden offers lush, colourful flowerbed arrangements, carefully navigated with clear pathways and park benches for an inner-city connection to nature.
“Here in the UK, the proposed Velindre Cancer Centre in Wales, from the Velindre University NHS Trust, is set to provide several homely touches as part of its design features. The communal kitchen space, for example, incorporates a modern wood effect design, creating a home from home feeling for staff that operate within critical illness. By further protecting and creating these spaces for staff, the idea is to boost wellbeing and comfort within their everyday roles.
“While awareness of staff wellness is growing in healthcare environments, it is often misrepresented in proportion to patient need. Without the time and dedication of our doctors, nurses, and support staff, there will simply be no NHS and no patients to care for.
“With the organisation set to undergo critical reform, perhaps this is an opportunity to address NHS staff burnout, place it at top of the need fulfilment list, and help drive a healthier future for all.”
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