The Lanarkshire Beatson, Airdrie – £22m, completed in September 2015.
The Lanarkshire Beatson is a new Satellite Radiotherapy Facility located at Monklands Hospital, Airdrie. It was built to meet the projected future increase in demand and relieve the pressures at the Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre in Glasgow and operates as a satellite facility to support and enhance the delivery of radiotherapy services throughout Lanarkshire and the West of Scotland.
The new two-storey facility provides non-surgical oncology services through external beam radiotherapy planning and treatment services. It contains two linear accelerators within two radiotherapy treatment bunkers, with a third provided for future expansion. The facility also holds onsite CT simulation and treatment planning facilities, a mould room and on-treatment review clinics.
The initial clinical focus will be in the radical treatment of patients with breast, lung, prostate and colorectal tumours but it is anticipated that other cancer types will be incorporated through time. The facility is on track to deliver its first treatment by the end of November 2015.
This technically challenging and complex structure was delivered by Laing O’Rourke and their in-house group companies, Expanded and Crown House Technologies, who have developed a local specialism in the cancer treatment sector following the recent completion of both phases of the Grampian Cancer Care projects in Aberdeen, also delivered under Frameworks Scotland. Lessons learnt from that scheme were carried forward to this project, together with team and consultant continuity. This ensured a successful, ‘no surprises’ delivery.
The project is located within a footprint that occupies nearly all available site space in the middle of a live hospital campus. The site itself is bound on three sides by the blue light route in the north, A&E and the day surgery unit in the west and the main hospital entrance and outpatients in the south. Laing O’Rourke therefore put in place procedures that ensured regular dialogue with the onsite NHS management and estates team.
Construction started in May 2014 and was completed 66 weeks later in September 2015. Handover took place three weeks ahead of programme, following a sectional completion to allow the early installation of the state-of-the-art TrueBeam linear accelerators. The project was delivered safely, with a nil Accident Frequency Rate, below budget and to high quality standards.
The project’s success was realised through excellent collaborative and open working with the project management team and continuous engagement with the clinical and end user teams. Altogether, the facility will be used by six different NHS Boards and as such has involved significant stakeholder management.