Mott MacDonald to advise Leeds Hospitals on sustainability

Mott MacDonald has been appointed sustainability, energy and carbon reduction advisor by the Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust (LTHT) to support the preparation of design briefs for its Hospitals of the Future and Pathology Project. 

The Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust has ambitious plans to invest in new healthcare facilities at the Leeds General Infirmary site. A new state-of-the-art hospital will expand the world-class adult healthcare services it offers, and the Leeds Children’s Hospital will also be given a fantastic new home. 

The two new hospitals are intended to be connected to the retained Jubilee building which will remain the primary acute services building, and continue to operate as the major trauma building. A new 6000m2 pathology facility is also being delivered at the St James University Hospital site.

Underlying this vision, is a desire to build and run these facilities responsibly within the context of a climate emergency – it will therefore set a road map for delivering against the net zero carbon in the future. The vision will also embed the principles of healthy buildings to improve the well-being of occupants – that is acutely influential for patient recovery, and staff performance and welfare. 

A target of a minimum of BREEAM Excellent for both developments has also been set by the Trust and the opportunities to pursue WELL building standards are also being explored. The sustainability agenda is to be underpinned by digitalisation, technology and data throughout the project lifecycles. 

Working with the LTHT’s programme delivery team, Mott MacDonald will support the refinement and development of the design brief to encourage design teams and contractors to develop an evidenced-based design solution that also considers the systems to be included in these highly-engineered facilities. The consultancy’s role includes:

• Reviewing, developing, challenging and updating all aspects of the sustainability and energy design brief for both projects;
• Reviewing, developing and specifying all technical sustainability and energy design requirements and standards to be achieved through the design of the new hospitals and pathology facility;
• Developing and articulating the vision for sustainability through a plan to achieve net zero carbon, which includes in the future post the completion of the works.

Rebecca Stubbs, Mott MacDonald’s technical advisor, said: “This project brings fantastic opportunity to create real legacy for best practice within the healthcare sector, especially for the other schemes to come through the government’s Health Infrastructure Plan. There is a real lack of what good looks like, particularly for acute buildings in the context of striving for net zero, so we are working closely with others to define this and set targets for how it can be demonstrated, across the lifecycle. 

“The LTHT projects also offer interesting challenges of working within an existing old and aging estate that is very inefficient – we will be discussing the role of future technologies such as the viability of hydrogen or all electric energy solutions. We are also aspiring to embed well-being through these buildings to put patients and staff’s health and performance at the very heart of the design.”