Redeveloping a health centre with sustainability at its core

Site: Chiswick Health Centre, London – an NHS Property Services owned site

Customers: the site is occupied by multiple healthcare occupants, including: North West London Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG); West 4 GPs; Chiswick Health Practice; Chiswick Family Practice; Hounslow and Richmond Community Trust; West London Trust; and Anchor Counselling Practice.   

NHSPS team: multiple NHSPS teams are collaborating on this project, alongside external partners. Those leading the project: Property Development Team (Conor Doyle); Transactions Team (Dan Hotson); and Construction Team (Peter Todd), supported by Portfolio Optimisation, Evaluation and Analytics, Procurement, Sustainability, Operations and Finance teams.

NHSPS commitment to sustainable developments

In October 2020, the NHS became the world’s first health service to commit to reaching carbon net zero, in response to the profound and growing threat to health posed by climate change. The “Delivering a Net Zero Health Service” report sets out a clear ambition and two evidence-based targets including being net zero carbon by 2040 in line with the UK Government’s target for the country to become net zero carbon by 2050.

NHS Property Services is committed to supporting the wider NHS in achieving these goals, and teams across the organisation are working hard to make a ‘Greener NHS’ a reality. Sustainability is at the forefront of our Property Development pipeline, and it is embedded in each project from the outset to delivery.

This ‘golden thread’ of achieving the highest sustainable and environmental standards is demonstrated as part of our collaboration with NHS North West London Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) as we bring forward proposals for a new, larger, and modern health facility at Chiswick Health Centre and 55 affordable homes nominated to NHS key workers.

The focus of our plans for Chiswick Health Centre has been to ensure that the Health Centre is not only modern and fit for purpose, but also achieves the highest environmental and sustainable standards by embracing sustainable design and low carbon technologies.

Given the site’s location within the London Borough of Hounslow, the project is required to comply with the Council’s Development Plan which outlines the sustainable development requirements:

• Hounslow’s Local Plan: requires all developments to achieve the Net ‘Zero Carbon’ standard with a minimum 35% CO2 emission improvement over Part L 2013 Building Regulations.
• Mayor’s London Plan (2021): requires compliance with the stages of the Mayor’s Energy Hierarchy to achieve the Net ‘Zero Carbon’ Standard (see below figure). 

1) Be Lean: use less energy and manage demand during operation

2) Be Clean: exploit local energy resources (such as secondary heat) and supply energy efficiently and cleanly

3) Be Green: maximise opportunities for renewable energy by producing, storing, and using renewable energy on-site

4) Be Seen: monitor, verify and report on energy performance

• BREEAM: a key target for this project includes achieving a BREEAM ‘Excellent’ rating to accord with NHS best practice (HBN/HTMs) and satisfy requirements of the Council’s Development Plan.

Figure 1: The London Plan energy hierarchy

The scheme incorporates modern, low carbon technology such as:

• Mechanical Ventilation Heat Recovery
• Air Source Heat Pumps providing heating
• Heating and Domestic Hot Water and Cooling
• LED lighting with appropriate PIR and daylight sensors
• Solar photovoltaic arrays
• Electric Vehicle charging points

The below table shows the servicing strategy in more detail.

Figure 2: methods of sustainable construction and building management deployed at Chiswick Health Centre

The results show that the combined Health Centre and Residential development delivers a site-wide:

• 77% carbon dioxide emissions reduction against a Building Regulations Part L (2013) baseline
• This equals a saving of approximately 59.8 tonnes of CO2 per annum.

The scheme also demonstrates compliance by utilising a ‘fabric first’ approach with thermally efficient building fabric that far exceeds Building Regulation Part L 2013 minimum compliance.

To ensure the ‘Zero Carbon’ target for the scheme, a nominal cash-in lieu payment is required to offset the surplus.

Project timeline

The Chiswick project construction is expected to start late in 2022 with demolition of the existing building once all clinical services has transferred to the nearby Stamford Brook Centre for a 2-3 year occupation.