Our #BehindtheBuilding campaign celebrates the people, partnerships and stories behind University Hospitals Plymouth's new £247m Emergency Care Building, focusing on the human aspect of the Future Hospital Programme and the wide variety of roles involved, not only in the design and construction, but also hearing from those who will be working in the new building once open.
In today's look behind the building, we hear from James Griffin. James is the Project Manager for Ward Williams Associates, who have been working alongside the Trust in the development of the new Community Diagnostic Centre.
Can you tell us a bit about your role and your involvement with the development of the CDC?
So, I was commissioned by the trust as Project Manager to oversee the design and construction phase of the project. We were brought in when we were first reviewing sites in Plymouth city centre. We did a certain amount of work in the vicinity of Colin Campbell Court and then we eventually decided on Colin Campbell Court car park. We started to develop the design further and work with UHP, KTA, SDS, and Airey and Coles to come up with a finalized pack for that to be tendered. Once it was tendered and we brought on board our contractor, BAM, we had started construction and currently we're close to completion of the construction phase, which I've been overseeing.
What does a typical day in the life as Project manager look like?
My day to day is really acting as the bridge between the client, design teams and the contractor themselves, as well as administrating the contract and helping with monitoring program. So a day in the life is usually coming down to site, checking in with contractors, checking in with clients, making sure things are keeping on time and on program and reviewing quality alongside Coreus as well.
How have you found working with the teams at University Hospitals Plymouth?
Working with UHP has been great. Taking it right from the start of the project where it was really, just quite embryonic. We were looking at all of the potentials that the CDC could be, and then refining that scope and then turning it into a design, and later, obviously a building, has been great. Working with various clinicians, that, you know, some departments I can't even pronounce properly. But looking at, where we can improve clinical pathways, we can improve the operational effectiveness of CDCs has been really interesting. Being able to be part of both the design and then the eventual construction phase has been brilliant. So yeah, that's what I've enjoyed.
