Brief early to ensure design quality

An architectural advisor to the NHS Confederation wants to see health trusts release funds for drawing up project briefs at a much earlier stage.

Health trusts should be encouraged to release funds for drawing up project briefs much earlier, said Sue Francis, architectural adviser to the NHS Confederation.

Speaking to an audience of private sector architects and developers at Health week, Ms Francis said there was often no financial mechanism for committing money at an early enough stage for research on the brief. She recommended that trusts should be able to anticipate the need for investing in the brief and release money upfront. To wait for funds to become available later on - typically the invitation to negotiate stage - was too late, she said.

David Richardson of Investors in the Community blamed the lack of progress in raising design quality on the public sector's lack of imagination. Whenever the private sector tried to produce innovative buildings that would act as a beacon, the public sector was told by its technical advisors that it should build a box to fit the budget instead. 'CABE needs to challenge that traditional public sector thinking and make them think about good design, to dream a bit,' he said.

CABE's head of enabling Mairi Johnson pointed out that the public sector client had its own gripes about the private sector: 'The perception of the private sector is that they are completely ruthless and will offer a shiny design to get preferred bidder status. Only at that point is the mask ripped off and the reality emerges.' The blame for poor design should lie between the two sectors, she said.

Tim Peters, a health planner with Sir Robert McAlpine, said there was a need for proper project evaluation. 'We don't do post project evaluation. We don't find out if that building works,' he said. This kind of information - the lessons from previous buildings - would be invaluable when drawing up briefs, he said.

Richard Fagg, of health developer Ryhurst, warned that GPs would become more and more responsible for commissioning new buildings. And yet at the moment there was no sense that they were interested in design. ;The challenge for CABE is to influence GPs so that they are not only considering pure functionality but good design, too. A GP would argue that the patients are only coming in for ten minutes so what difference does it make providing a wonderful environment other than the cost of it.'

In other Health week events:

• John Sorrell will chair Public consultation: help or hype?, an event bringing together young people and nurses to share their experiences of the design process.
• The latest gadget for home assistance by Professor Heinz Wolff will be on show and Jeremy Porteus, National Lead for the Department of Health's Housing and Telecare Networks Health and Social Care Change Agent Team will be joining Designing homes for healthcare, a discussion about how our existing housing stock must respond to future levels of homecare.
• Roger Ulrich from the departments of Architecture and Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning, Texas A&M University, will be speaking at The benefit of hindsight, a discussion of ways to evaluate the benefits of well-designed healthcare buildings.

Places are strictly limited so for free tickets contact Bianca Mathews on 020 7070 6765.