Arup assists in build of new UK mental health hospital
Mersey Care NHS Trust recently opened its new mental health unit in Liverpool, called the Clock View. The new unit provides 80 beds for local patients and is designed to improve the wellbeing of its patients. Arup assisted Mersey Care in the development of Clock View. The engineering and consulting firm was involved in the creation of the hospital environment and provided design services.
The Clock View
The Clock View is the recently opened £25 million mental health unit of Mersey Care NHS Trust in Liverpool (UK). The unit provides care for local people with mental health issues, including dementia, anxiety and depression, as well as short-term psychiatric intensive care. It holds 80 bedrooms and has been designed to improve patients’ wellbeing with natural light, with safe inner garden courtyards, activity and therapeutic areas.
The new centre replaces the mental health services previously provided at the Stoddart House (Aintree Hospital) and has been built on the site of the former Walton Hospital. To construct the new unit, Mersey Care collaborated with the Liverpool Sefton Health Partnership (LSHP)*, which co-ordinated the programme, as well as with Arup.
Arup
The consulting firm has been working on the hospital unit since 2005 and its behavioural specialists and clinical psychologists have been involved in the creation of the hospital environment. In addition, Arup provided the full design services, which included BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Methodology), fire, acoustics and environmental consulting services, geo-technics and transport planning.
Commenting on the opened unit, Garry Banks, Project Director at Arup, says: “Collaboration was the key to success on this project. We worked closely with The Mersey Care NHS Trust and Medical Architecture to ensure that close attention was paid to the details throughout project. And we also engaged with staff and patients to create safe and calm environment that promotes wellbeing. Right from the beginning, we saw that Clock View was much more than just a building project and the result is a state-of-the-art hospital that marks a step change in the delivery of mental health care in the UK.”
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* Liverpool Sefton Health Partnership is a partnership between Community Health Partnerships and GP Consortium that delivers the UK Government’s Local Improvement Finance Trust (LIFT) programme across Liverpool and Sefton.
