Behind the Building

 

In the seventh of our #BehindtheBuilding series looking at the new Emergency Care Building (ECB), we talk to Josh Heath who is an Associate Partner in Project Management at Ward Williams.

Can you tell us a bit about Ward Williams? 

Ward Williams is a construction consultancy that specialises in project management, cost consultancy, building and sustainability services. We’ve got eight offices nationwide ranging from Manchester and London, right down as far as Truro. We work predominantly on the client side, supporting them with construction projects. 

How are you involved in the ECB? 

We are working very closely with the Trust on the ECB as project managers and cost consultants. We’ve been involved right from the start - from the development and formation of the business case, through to getting a design on paper, costing it and bringing it on board with the contractor. We provide leadership and guidance throughout the entire process. Now that Willmott Dixon are on site and building the project, we’re overseeing and managing it, including keeping it to time and budget. 

My role is a Project Manager which, for people outside of the construction industry, isn’t necessarily a well-known one. People have normally heard of architects and structural engineers, for example. But actually every single project - from building a railway line, museum or even a school, there’s a project manager at the hub. We make sure that the client brief is delivered on site and are the main proliferator of managing challenges through the project, because there’s always challenges in construction.

Is this your first time working with the Trust? 

Since joining Ward Williams, we’ve actually worked on a number of projects that have been a sort of stepping stone to the ECB, upgrading and moving key services around to make space and get the whole site ready for it. There’s been a real build in momentum over the last six to seven years, including the Cath Labs project, Endoscopy expansion, Bigbury Orthopaedic Surgical Suite, Pharmacy upgrade, Dartmoor Building and most recently the enabling works to essentially clear the old Plym Theatres to get the site ready. There’s been a long path to the ECB and it’s been good to be part of the journey. 

Have there been any stand-out moments for you so far? 

Earlier last year, we had done all we could on the business case and were waiting to hear back from central government. It was a culmination of five/six years of work from a big team of people, and we were keeping our fingers crossed. When we got the email from the Health Minister to say it had been signed off, it was a very good day. Having that confirmation that central government had endorsed the project and we had the green light to go ahead really sticks out in my mind.

What does a typical day on this project look like for you? 

A day as a Project Manager can be very varied. On a typical day, we’ll have a site visit, reviewing progress and quality, discussing with the actual guys on the ground how things are going. We can go straight from there to a room where we sit down with the design team - architects, MEP engineers, fire engineers, structural engineers - and we review drawings and designs. Then we can have an afternoon of board meetings or steering group meetings, where we provide updates to various stakeholders of the hospital, including at national central government level. 

What’s the biggest challenge you’re facing with this project? 

I think that working in healthcare is a challenge, as it requires a real eye for detail and is very nuanced, with the needs of the end users being very complex. For instance, we’re talking about designing theatres and the spaces that interact with those theatres and dealing with patients in all sorts of conditions. There’s a lot of foresight required and it really challenges your way of thinking. 

Another challenge is the extent of stakeholders. Normally on other projects, we may have one single client who gives us our direction. At Derriford Hospital we have layers and layers of people who work in and use the hospital every day, and all their voices need to be heard. We need to make sure we’re sitting down with all of those people and giving them the right amount of time and exposure to our designers and builders, to make sure what is delivered reflects what they need to run the hospital. 

The biggest challenge with the ECB is the fact that we’re building a very large construction project right next to a live Emergency Department. The second busiest bus depot in the city is right on our doorstep, with air ambulances coming and going and thousands upon thousands of people coming through the main entrance. So we’ve had to plan how the construction interfaces with the day-to-day running of the hospital very carefully. 

Have you had any personal experiences of our services? 

I’ve played quite a bit of rugby in Plymouth and unfortunately I’ve been to the Emergency Department a couple of times. Every time I’ve engaged with the department, whether it be from a personal or work perspective, it is constantly busy and there’s a lot of emotion in the waiting room. All the nurses, doctors and volunteers deal with it with a great amount of dignity and patience. I just have the utmost respect for the staff in there and I think it’s a testament to the hospital that it’s an incredibly well-run department.

What do you think are the key benefits of the ECB? 

Having worked up and around the hospital for several years now, I’m acutely aware that the environment in some areas is slightly dated. I think the projects we’ve delivered during my time at Ward Williams have been upgrading the entire infrastructure of the Trust, and the ECB is going to be the end point, putting Derriford on the map as a hospital that can deliver the highest quality healthcare.

It’s also an incredibly important project for Plymouth. With my construction hat on, I think a project of this size in Plymouth is an endorsement of Plymouth itself. In the construction industry, there is a preconceived idea that the world stops at Exeter and you don’t tend to get mega projects beyond Exeter. There’s a perspective that there’s no money or opportunity to work on big stuff in the South West. So I think having a project of this scale is going to draw more investment and bigger projects in this direction. It’s going to be good for not only social and economic reasons but also for the construction industry in general.