Cockermouth Community Hospital & Health Centre

Cockermouth Community Hospital & Health Centre

The design, build, finance and operation of the facility through the Express LIFT initiative and including support to the PCT in production of the Outline and Full Business Cases.

Provide appropriate accommodation for a fully integrated service in Cockermouth

Replacing temporary accommodation that was being occupied by two of the GP practices and an old, inadequate Cottage Hospital.

Key Details:

Clients: elc (Tranche 1) Ltd for Community Health Partnerships (CHP) and Cumbria PCT, now the North Cumbria CCG.

Capital value:  £11.7m

Project scope:  The design, build, finance and operation of the facility through the Express LIFT initiative and including support to the PCT in production of the Outline and Full Business Cases

The project:

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The Cockermouth scheme was designed to provide appropriate accommodation for a fully integrated service in Cockermouth including two GP practices, community health, diagnostics, a dental practice, social care teams and community beds.

 

It replaced temporary accommodation that was being occupied by two of the GP practices and an old, inadequate Cottage Hospital.

It is located on land adjacent to the old hospital which is owned by the League of Friends of the Hospital, with a covenant in favour of the Leconfield Estate.  The land was transferred to Fundco on a 99 year Lease at a peppercorn rent.

Patient and community benefits:

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The Cockermouth scheme falls within the Allerdale locality and formed a key strand of the investment required in the area at the time. The town had suffered significant flooding in November 2009 impacting on the infrastructure required to deliver care in the locality and resulting in a number of GPs operating out of temporary accommodation. The scheme was designed to redress this situation whilst at the same time moving clinical practices forward to achieve economies of scale and community health benefits.

In addition to providing new GP accommodation, the scheme provided a much needed eleven bed ward to replace the dated Cottage Hospital helping ensure that there was a continuing ability to provide high quality, local care for those living in the vicinity.

Similarly, the inclusion of dedicated space has provided modern, purpose designed space for the provision of a variety of clinics and services.

Our challenges:

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Affordability:

The facility was procured through the Express LIFT framework but affordability challenges necessitated the use of a novel, hybrid form of LIFT lease developed by the team specifically for this and the development at Cleator Moor.

Land:

The preferred location was a greenfield site immediately adjacent to the existing Cottage Hospital. As such it was highly sensitive and extensive liaison was required with the Leconsfield Estate in order to comply with their covenant on the land and meet all the Estate’s design criteria. The situation was further complicated by Cockermouth’s flood risk and the lack of capacity in the town’s drainage infrastructure. As a consequence, it was necessary to provide extensive attenuation measures and a surface water outfall to the nearby River Derwent.

NHS Restructuring:

The closing stages of construction coincided with the 2013 restructuring of the NHS which resulted in the loss of some key contacts within the Client team. As a consequence, Carveti was called upon to provide additional support to the NHS team in the run-up, and subsequent to, the tenants relocating to the building.

Our successes:

Key partners:

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