Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of modular construction for the delivery of healthcare infrastructure within the NHS.

We recognise the merits of modular construction for delivering National Health Service health infrastructure, including faster construction times, cost savings, minimised disruption, higher quality and safety standards, and the use of sustainable materials and methods.

Modular construction is a modern method of construction (MMC). A toolkit has been developed to support MMC opportunities in healthcare, which is publicly available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/nhs-modern-methods-of-construction-assessment-tool-user-guide/

The toolkit is recommended for use on all healthcare infrastructure projects and is mandated for projects over £25 million to meet the business case requirements of 70% new build and 50% refurbishment using MMC.

The New Hospital Programme is already transforming the way that hospital infrastructure is constructed by using a national standardised approach, called Hospital 2.0. Hospital 2.0 uses a standardised ‘kit of parts’ for hospital components, ranging from doors to full bathroom pods, that can be assembled into different size hospitals in an optimised, consistent, and repeatable way and with off-site manufacturing and with modular construction, reducing costs and accelerating construction.