Bam to build £68m Salford trauma hospital

The contractor has been selected by the Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust to build a 105,000 sq ft facility as part of the Salford Royal hospital, and will start construction next month.

Salford City Council approved plans for the six-storey James Potter Building – previously known as the Acute Receiving Centre – in December 2019.

The six-storey centre is intended to support Salford Royal’s role as the major trauma centre for Greater Manchester. It will feature a resuscitation area, five emergency theatres, inpatient beds, diagnostic imaging and a helipad.

Once complete, the specialist facility is expected to receive 90% of all major trauma patients in Greater Manchester, for example, people who have been involved in a serious road traffic accident or serious fall. It will also be the hub site for high-risk general surgery across Bolton, Salford and Wigan.

The £68m project is part of the Government’s national Health Infrastructure Plan to deliver 48 hospitals across the country by 2030, and Bam Construction’s appointment follows a competitive process under the Procure22 Health Framework.

Bam is on site carrying out enabling works and a full construction programme is due to start on 22 February. Day Architectural has led on the design of the project. The scheme is targeted to complete in summer 2023.

The Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust is part of the Northern Care Alliance NHS Group. The development is named in honour of the group’s recently retired long-standing chairman Jim Potter.

Raj Jain, chief executive of the Northern Care Alliance, said: “This important facility has been many years in the planning with a number of our local, regional and national partners and it’s great to now be just weeks away from the official start date of construction.

“We are proud to be the major trauma centre for Greater Manchester and this centre and the amazing facilities and our specialist clinical teams it will allow us to provide trauma care and services to an additional 400 patients per year and help save more lives.”

Rob Bailey, Bam’s healthcare construction manager, added: “We have worked extensively on the design and construction programme with the trust to understand fully what their requirements are, and focus completely on what matters to them – providing a high-quality building in which their patients are cared for and their staff can provide that care.

“That is how buildings should be delivered, with the outcomes the client wants placed at the centre.”

Bam was also involved in the build of two of the UK’s Nightingale hospitals last year.