The creation and development of this new community health centre in Tower Hamlets, East London has enabled two existing GP practices to come together to deliver integrated primary and community health services incorporating new healthcare service models and efficiencies.
Tower Hamlets is England’s tenth most deprived borough and comprises the largest Bangladeshi population in the UK, a rapidly growing influx of high-earning professionals and young digital natives.
Many Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) across the UK are faced with more and more services being pulled into the primary care setting – from mental health work to social prescribing. Healthcare services are now focused on providing an all-round care package for the community, where practitioners may not be permanently based in the practice and only use the building on a sessional basis.
For this new model to be successful and support the delivery of enhanced patient outcomes, the physical estate, assets and use of digital technology must work to optimise the care interactions between the patient and provider. It is this premise that sits at the heart of our work on Goodman’s Fields Community Health Centre.
Our aim was to deliver a flexible zonal design that actively delivers better health and social outcomes for residents, could adapt to the changing service needs of the diverse local population and be best placed to respond to their current and future requirements. Extensive consultation with patients, NHS partners, community representatives, the local authority and practice tenants helped to ensure the centre meets its users’ current and future needs. This currently enables the facility to perform multiple functions as a general practitioner, surgery, a well-being and health centre, and a community centre.
Our design relocated the main health centre entrance to take advantage of a double height space and uses wayfinding for patients and visitors on arrival. To streamline the proposed service model, improve flow and respond to the digital vision, we positioned digital check-in points and patient measurement machines prior to patients arriving at reception and waiting areas. The reception and waiting areas are centred around the existing central courtyard, an area naturally lit by daylight which provides views out onto a landscaped garden enhancing the therapeutic environment for all patients, visitors and staff.
Our collaborative and research-based approach has created an environment which promotes wellbeing, privacy, and dignity. Every aspect of our design carefully considers natural light and places special emphasis on the creation of a welcoming entrance, reception and waiting areas and excellent staff observation points to support and alleviate patient anxiety.
“……Goodman’s Fields is an excellent exemplar of the CCG’s vision for future healthcare community centres ……” Jack Dunmore, Strategic Estates Manager, NELCCG
A collaboration between NELCCG, NHS England, Tower Hamlets Council, NHS Property Services and Berkeley Homes the health center is located on the ground floor of a new residential building within a mixed-use residential and leisure urban quarter. The centre opened in September 2021 providing 23 clinical rooms, multi-purpose group rooms, interview and counselling rooms and staff accommodation. Today, it serves a diverse roster of 29,000 Londoners.
Client
NHS Property Services for Tower Hamlets Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG)
Services
- Architecture
- Building services
- Structural engineering
- BREEAM
- Project management
- Cost management
