Complex project to create new Broadmoor Hospital

Located on a prominent ridge near Crowthorne, with extensive views over the Berkshire countryside, Broadmoor Hospital is one of three high secure, forensic hospitals in England, along with Rampton Hospital in Nottinghamshire, and Ashworth Hospital on Merseyside. Many of the current buildings date back to the hospital’s opening in the 1860s. Today the hospital houses around 200 male patients diagnosed with a mental illness or personality disorder, treated via a tailored care plan regime using a combination of medication and psychiatric and psychological therapies.

While the care and therapy provided are distinctly 21st century, many of the existing hospital’s buildings, including the Grade II listed gatehouse and clocktower, are Victorian. With recognition – especially over the past 2-3 decades – that the old buildings were no longer fit for purpose, with, for example, poor sightlines making patient observation difficult, Bracknell Forest Council approved plans for a major redevelopment scheme at Broadmoor in March 2012, followed, in July 2012, by the Department of Health’s approval of the Outline Business Case for a new 16-ward, 234-bed hospital. The full business case was approved by NHS England and the NHS Trust Development Authority in July 2013, with Kier named the Trust’s preferred tenderer the same month. December 2013 then saw the Department of Health approve West London Mental Health NHS Trust’s redevelopment plans for both the Broadmoor Hospital and, in a separate £60 million scheme, for a medium secure unit at St Bernard’s Hospital in Ealing (The Network – July 2016), paving the way for work to commence on both sites.

Two architectural practices – Oxford Architects, and, subsequently, Lancashire-based Gilling Dod, have worked on the design for the £242 m redevelopment of Broadmoor Hospital. Engaged in 2009 as concept architects on the scheme following an OJEU notification and appointment process, Oxford Architects undertook the briefing, consultation, planning, organisation, and executed the lead designer role on the project from inception to completion of RIBA Stage E+. When it was awarded the main building contract in 2010, Kier’s Major Projects division brought on board specialist mental health architect, Gilling Dod, to act as main delivery architects, taking on Stage E detail design and production information through the site phase and on to completion. In a separate contract, Gilling Dod’s Interior Design Practice (Gdid) has acted as interior designer across the entire scheme.