§ Mr. Patrick Jenkinasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will estimate the average time that elapses between the completion of the design work of a new teaching or district general hospital and the completion of its building; if he will state what modifications to the design are found to be necessary, e.g., for additional fire precautions, to bring the building up to modern operational standards; and if he has any plans to shorten the time scale and so reduce the need for such modifications.
§ Mr. EnnalsNew teaching hospitals and district general hospitals have usually been built in phases; the individual schemes range widely in content and size and there are wide variations in types of site. It is not possible therefore to give a meaningful average of the kind requested, but recent experience shows that the construction of a phase of hospital development costing about £7 million can be expected to be completed in about three years.
Modifications to design during the course of construction can arise for a number of reasons, for example, to meet changes in statutory requirements, to meet unforeseeable problems relating to sites and materials, and to meet necessary changes in user requirements.
Health authorities have been recommended as far as possible to keep building contracts below three years duration, and to keep variations during the course of contract to a necessary minimum. But changes to comply with statutory requirements coming into force between design and completion of construction cannot be avoided. For major schemes they are required to provide a statement of readiness before going to tender in order to 523W reduce the possibility of inadequately prepared schemes being allowed to start. The nucleus hospital standardised design promoted by my Department reduced the problem of change, for example, by anticipation of future trends in fire precaution arrangements and because its short design time means that it is more up to date when it starts building.