Services - Capital Development

Virginia de Vere and Geof Beesley lead Fusion Health on capital development services.

Fusion brings with it a strong track record in providing advice to a wide range of capital developments from both a bidding consortium and NHS advisor perspective. We have experience of providing advice to capital redevelopment projects ranging from departmental refurbishment solutions to new build general and specialist hospitals.

We are able to support the capital development process at all points, including :

• Clinical visioning and whole systems analyses.
• Interpretation and translation of the clinical vision into policy; model of care development.
• Facilitation and production of clinical output specifications and operational policies.
• Conversion of policy into practice and physical requirements.
• Developing, understanding and communicating spatial and functional relationships.
• Producing innovative accommodation schedules and advising on physical solutions to support the requirements.
• Facilitating user groups as part of the capital development process.
• Acting as a catalyst and co-ordinator between clinical planning, design, clinical support and building engineering functions.
• Development of room data sheets and equipping advice.

For our specialist healthcare planning work we have developed a distinctive package of support. As well as the standard work on clinical specifications and schedules of accommodation, we offer capacity planning, model of care development and workforce planning and modelling as part of a comprehensive portfolio. More importantly, however, all of our work is designed to have maximum engagement with clinicians and managers adopting the following key elements:

• The simple theme of "owned solutions" soon becomes apparent through our clinical specification development work and the development of schedules of accommodation. Again, working with carefully selected groups of stakeholders, we both bring best practice from elsewhere, improving upon existing working practices but retaining systems that are proven to work within the host organisation. A truly owned solution that fits the local and national health economies is the result.
• We are able to engage with the Design Team, once the specification and scheduling work is complete to ensure that the central themes and cores of the specifications are fully understood and, subject to the procurement route in question, we often act as the clients advocate, protecting the clinical interests of the Trust and ensuring that the project remains "patient focused" whilst at the same time ensuring that staff interests are also protected.
• In building models of care we concentrate on achieving clinical 'buy in', discussing the local issues and constraints in small workshops and one to one meetings. Bringing in good practice from elsewhere and taking account of the national agenda, we are able to develop new care pathways that are owned by the clinicians and managers;
• For capacity planning, we take a similar approach, facilitating the preparation of interactive computer models which summarise the key elements of current activity, demographic trends and government clinical targets. Small groups of clinicians and managers can then test the impact of different assumptions on activity and facilities;