Brentwood Community Hospital

Smaller community-based centres can have a huge impact on alleviating the strain on major hospitals, by providing the kind of services which are most needed by and focussed on, the local community.

Brentwood Community Hospital offers 8,000 sqm of state-of-the-art inpatient and outpatient facilities, antenatal and dental treatments and rehabilitation and therapy services. It acts as a local base for children’s services, midwifery and community nurses, delivering accessible healthcare in the Brentwood area.

Kajima’s challenge was to finance, design, and build a new facility to replace an existing 1930’s building, providing today’s advanced standards as well as to deal sensitively with the local wildlife and ecology issues. Situated in a wooded area, it was Kajima’s priority to minimise tree-loss during the re-build, respecting the exceptional local ecology whilst enhancing the surroundings for its users - each patient area now has at least one window per room, maximising the views and lighting in order to enhance the patient experience. Another challenge was to improve the relationship between the hospital’s different departments whilst maintaining smooth circulation around the hospital by medical staff and users. Kajima involved and coordinated all parties in a full and open review of how the hospital asset was to be used for medical purposes, and what FM services were actually required for full efficiency of operational performance. The outcome was a groundbreaking, crescent-shaped collection of buildings, with relatively shallow floorplates.

Brentwood Community Hospital is now a first-class community hospital, awarded an “Excellent” rating by Patient Environment Action Team (PEAT) and in addition, has successfully managed to free up acute care spaces at the nearby Havering Hospital, with its 52 patient recuperation beds.