The Cancer Centre at Guy’s opens in 2016 – scroll down for progress video
The in-house project management team at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust has outlined its plans to manage and advise on capital projects for other NHS clients and overseas organisations – offering private sector expertise but within the NHS.
The team recently completed the £40m refurbishment of Guy’s Tower and is currently working with Laing O’Rourke on an innovative offsite-manufactured £160m Cancer Centre at Guy’s.
But the project’s chief innovation lies in its financing: the top four floors will be run by a private operator, providing the income stream that has allowed the Trust to raise debt finance to build the project.
Essentia now says that it has won two projects for external clients: a “significant” project for an NHS Trust, and an advisory role on an overseas hospital.
Executive director Steve McGuire told CM: “Many NHS Trusts these days lack expertise in project management, but in the past few years we’ve bucked that trend and recruited heavily. We like to say we’re ‘for the NHS, by the NHS’ – we’re part of the NHS, but Essentia is neither in the public sector nor the private – it’s a completely new way of doing things.”
“I’ve been in this sector now for 20 years and I’ve always felt strongly that the NHS should have the capability to look after itself. Up to now there hasn’t been an alternative – something that’s neither the status quo, or going over to the private sector.”
"Potentially, we can work with other parts of the NHS and the public sector to help those organisations better understand the estate they’ve got, to reduce their overheads and to help organiations find solutions."
Steve McGuire, Essentia
Essentia, formerly known as the Trust’s Capital, Estates and Facilities Directorate, was set up in 2003 to improve the physical environment and hard and soft FM provision at the Trust. Renamed in 2012, it now has 1,600 staff and a turnover of £150m a year. The headcount includes senior managers recruited from the construction and property sectors.
Now new division Essentia Trading, a wholly owned subsidiary of Guy’s and St Thomas’, is pitching for project management roles on major capital projects for health clients in the UK and overseas. Any profits from its consultancy services will be reinvested back into the Trust.
McGuire told CM: “We learned to design, plan, maintain and build, so we’ve got Guys and St Thomas’ into a really good shape. Given we’ve built up an enormous expertise in-house, we decided to explore the market with other people in the NHS. In terms of external clients, we hope to grow quickly.
“We can support other NHS clients by offering advice and consultancy, we can advice on construction and health care planning and capital projects,” he explained. “Potentially, we can work with other parts of the NHS and the public sector to help those organisations better understand the estate they’ve got, to reduce their overheads and to help organiations find solutions.
“With the Cancer Centre, we found the right architect [Rogers Stirk and Harbour] through an architectural competition, and we also found the most appropriate funding package. So I would hope to be able to do that for other parts of the NHS in due course.”
“I would also hope to bring benefits to local people and communities, and to positively contribute to GSTT’s balance sheet.” McGuire stresses that Essentia Trading’s business plan includes targets for job creation as well as turnover.
Essentia is currently also midway through a £20m project to double the size of the A&E department at St Thomas’ hospital, and is recladding and refurbishing St Thomas’ East Wing where ISG is the contractor. An early Essentia project was Thomas Heatherwick’s Boilerhouse at Guy’s in 2007.
