RAAC service recovery strategy
SECTOR: HEALTH | PROJECT AREA: STRATEGIC ADVICE | PROJECT STATUS: COMPLETED
The potential safety risks of finding Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (RAAC) in hospital and health infrastructure is one that keeps health estates managers up at night. We supported NHS trusts to plan for if they had to close hospitals due to RAAC issues.
The challenge
Sewell Advisory has worked as a specialist estates partner to NHS trusts and ICBs to plan for the effects of RAAC. We were engaged based on our strategic business case and estates expertise to help develop medium-term recovery plans. The disaster recover and contingency style plans were being developed for the re-provision of clinical and non-clinical services in the event of a RAAC-related hospital closure affecting acute trusts and ICSs.
The solution
The essence of this bespoke work was to create blueprints based around crisis management and forward planning in case any or all of the hospitals were to become no longer operational due to RAAC.
Throughout the early development stages, we collaborated closely with existing service providers to assess and prioritise how we get services back up and running as quickly, and efficiently, as possible.
It was also critically important to engage with senior stakeholders to build consensus around local strategies, priorities, and objectives, to ensure that the recovery plans were aligned to this context.
Consultations with clinical departments and estates teams allowed us to understand how they deliver their services, their subsequent estates requirement and identify the dependencies and adjacencies between them.
Utilising the detailed set of requirements we developed for each of the acute services, we were able to cross-reference with remaining on-site locations not affected by RAAC, to determine what can be moved out to modular buildings still within the boundaries of the hospitals.
In some cases, through liaison with department leads and system partners, it was agreed that some services could be delivered on alternative sites, utilising system partners’ estate as well as local community assets, without putting unnecessary pressures on other hospitals or making patients travel further afield. Considerations were also made for community health centres, diagnostic hubs, GPs or even providing more digital appointments to reduce disruptions to patient care as much as possible.
The result
We worked at pace to develop tangible, fully costed contingency plans for the relocation of all services, including the optimised use of non-RAAC affected estate, digital transformation, temporary/modular builds, and alternative locations in different settings. This output provided the local system with a framework for determining the most appropriate response.
We also developed a series of recommendations around how trusts and wider systems can proactively reduce their risk profile and the time taken to stand up recovery solutions should such an event arise.
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