Europe’s ‘first carbon-neutral’ hospital, a mental health facility replacing a Victorian era building, and a single hospital site bringing two hospitals together – all in Bradford – form part of an ambitious funding bid submitted to the Government.
The joint bid seeking over £1.7 billion in funding has been submitted by the Act as One health and care partnership that covers Bradford District and Craven, serving a population of over 647,000 people. The combined bid is in addition to three individual proposals submitted by Airedale NHS Foundation Trust, Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust, and Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. The proposals are being backed by NHS Bradford District and Craven Clinical Commissioning Group, Bradford Council, and the West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership. The plans would see the following:
- Rebuilding of Airedale Hospital on its current site with the ambition of creating Europe’s first ‘carbon-neutral’ hospital. The current building is over 60 years’ old, making it difficult to deliver digitally-enabled care, and ‘is not suited to meet carbon-neutral goals’.
- Rebuilding the Lynfield Mount inpatient mental healthcare facility to develop a new acute inpatient facility that integrates mental health and neurodiversity within the community. This would focus on redeveloping the centrally located main block. The hospital would take a ‘health campus’ approach to deliver wider services working with partners.
- Replacing Bradford Royal Infirmary and St. Luke’s Hospital with a single-site purpose-built hospital (see artist’s impression). The new hospital forms part of Bradford Council’s Core Strategy, ‘which sets out the strategic direction to create a sustainable future for the district’, which has a young and growing population. This, coupled with the Trust’s ageing estate and high maintenance costs, drives the need for strategic healthcare planning and exploring options to secure funding for future large-scale development.
Bradford Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust said: “Building on extensive work involving a range of partners, community groups, health and care staff, and community feedback on current health and care facilities, the proposals would see ‘state-of-the-art facilities’ being developed over the coming years. The new hospitals would go beyond providing hospital care, and include options that would encourage wider community use of the buildings to support people in living well and contributing to the wider economic regeneration of the district and wider region.” The bid ‘links to broad-ranging plans that are considering how other buildings and community assets can help deliver the health, care and wellbeing services to meet future needs’.
Helen Hirst, Chief Officer for NHS Bradford District and Craven CCG, said: “Our plans would radically transform health and care services for our communities, contribute to the wider economic recovery plans, encourage inward investment, attract and retain the best talent, and build on wider regeneration plans both for Bradford District and Craven and our wider region. They would also allow us to positively contribute to carbon zero or carbon neutral ambitions.”
Therese Patten, Chief Executive for Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust, commented: “This bid has been built on a comprehensive and collaborative approach that recognises the collective strength of all our partners, and our bold vision to radically transform health and care services. In addition, we want to look beyond the model of hospitals being solely there to provide care to actually being community-based and community-led resources that impact on wider wellbeing and challenge stigma.”
Brendan Brown, Chief Executive for Airedale NHS Foundation Trust, added: “We have put together a compelling case that highlights that doing nothing is not an option for us at Airedale due to our buildings now reaching the end of their life. Our plans would see us create Europe’s first carbon-neutral hospital, directly contributing to local and global efforts to combat climate change. Our proposal builds on detailed discussions with colleagues in NHS England and NHS Improvement and the Department of Health”