NHS Trust & Balfour Beatty - Midland Metropolitan Hospital
Here ’ s How a Golden Thread of Information Connects Multiple Stakeholders on a High-profile Hospital Build
Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust ( the Trust ) is focused on improving lives in its community through care , teaching , education , innovation and research . At more than 7,000 employees strong , the Trust is responsible for the healthcare of an estimated 530,000 people from across North-West Birmingham and numerous towns within Sandwell in the United Kingdom .
The Trust is making major investments to improve the level and quality of healthcare offered , and one of those improvements is the construction of the state-of-the-art Midland Metropolitan University Hospital . Once construction is complete , this facility will be the largest acute healthcare facility within the Trust .
Carillion , a well-known and highly regarded construction and project management firm , was chosen to build Midland Metropolitan University Hospital before its collapse in 2018 .
As they took over this massive project , Balfour Beatty relied on VFP for :
• Streamlining documentation
• Reducing errors
• Mitigating risks
• Avoiding duplication of efforts
“ With Viewpoint for Projects , users have access to the information they need at the right time , to make quick , informed decisions ,” said Nohmam Awan , Balfour Beatty Digital Construction Lead . “ People are saving time by using this system so they can access information fairly quickly . Compared to the traditional process of working [ without such a program ], saves us about a week on each package submission .”
Successful Workflows with Cloud-based Collaboration Balfour Beatty collaborates across all disciplines , thanks to VFP .
In the wake of Carillion ’ s insolvency , the Trust was left to find a new construction firm and keep the project moving forward as planned . In addition to the challenge of finding a new contractor to take over the project , the Trust needed to preserve the existing project data information flow and maintain it moving forward with the new contractor . Carillion had relied on Viewpoint for Projects ( VFP ) as the hospital construction cloud-based project management software solution .
The Viewpoint team offered to work with the Trust for successful completion of this significant project , transferring the VFP cloud data to the new contractor . As a next step , the Trust chose Balfour Beatty to take over construction management of this high-profile build .
VFP Offers Stability and Efficiency for Hospital Construction
VFP is an award-winning , cloud-based document management solution which enables customers to share , control and collaborate on project documents with dispersed project teams . The solution provides a single platform for all project documents , drawings , photos and file types ; and workflows ensure the right information is shared by the right people at the right time .
Project stakeholders see one real-time single version of the truth and can view documents regardless of the software program in which they were created . Documents are also available for offline access so users can still work when no internet connectivity exists , and VFP does not require a native app .
www . viewpoint . com
“ We use Viewpoint for Projects through full design stage , to collaborate across all disciplines – structural , civil , mechanical , electrical – all trades and other project stakeholders ,” notes Hayden Jones , Balfour Beatty design technical lead for Midland Metropolitan University Hospital . “ It ’ s allowed us to introduce workflows within it so we can assess , review , approve , accept , and submit to stakeholders so they can review and accept .”
The Midland Metropolitan University Hospital project is on track for completion in 2024 . VFP ’ s golden thread of data will allow the Trust to hang on to valuable building data for warranty and additional maintenance work for the lifetime of this facility .
“ Once we get to the end of this process , we will have full records , from day one to day of handover to [ the hospital ] and there is an auditable trail , so if there are any queries , we can clearly go back and see how we got to that point in time so there can be no dissatisfaction with records ,” said Peter Pugh , Balfour Beatty , Lead Quality Manager .
Richard Molloy , Trust Construction Director for Midland Metropolitan University Hospital is grateful for the pivotal role VFP played in this project . “ How they ’ ve [ Viewpoint ] understood those problems , and then solved them straight away , and given us a seamless approach , so that we ’ ve got a collaborative environment , is fantastic ,” he said . “ It ’ s been a great success and I ’ m thankful to VFP for helping us deliver this project .”