The delivery of the Nightingale hospitals to provide emergency relief care during the first weeks of the coronavirus crisis demonstrated the pace at which health facilities could be built – and proved that the UK construction sector has the capability to deliver these types of healthcare facilities on demand.

Add to this a government programme to build 40 hospitals within the next decade, as well as the implications of the pandemic on the physical makeup of hospital buildings, and it is clear that the design and the way in which these facilities are delivered is certain to change in numerous ways over the coming years.

While certain sectors have dried up in the wake of the pandemic, firms are flocking to the booming healthcare sector – an area that the government has promised to spend big on. The Department for Health and Social Care has revealed 32 hospital projects to be built as part of its Health Infrastructure Plan 1 and 2 (HIP1/HIP2), and the race is on for both those trying to get hospitals built and those looking to build them.

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