£32m for cooling and ventilation in NHS England hospitals
UK – The Department of Health and Social Care has identified more than £32 million for cooling, ventilation and overheating measures within the first approvals from the NHS Estates Safety Fund in England.
The funding forms part of a wider package of more than £1.5 billion for NHS estate work. It includes more than £200 million for 10 major schemes and more than £1.3 billion for maintenance, safety and resilience projects associated with more than 950 schemes.
Named cooling-related projects include £154,000 to replace a PET-scanner chiller at Manchester Royal Infirmary; £527,000 to replace air conditioning in a Rampton Hospital unit in Nottinghamshire; and £791,000 to restore cooling capacity supporting safe theatre operating conditions at St Peter’s Hospital in Ashford.
The government said the cooling, ventilation and overheating work is intended to improve hospitals’ resilience to extreme heat and reduce disruption to patient care. Other measures in the estate package include fire-safety work, replacement of ageing ventilation systems and electrical-equipment upgrades.
The approved projects will now proceed to detailed design, with final scope and cost subject to subsequent business-case approvals. The announcement is therefore an early pipeline for HVAC, cooling, controls and wider building-services work, rather than a single national procurement or contract award.
NHS England guidance places responsibility for Estates Safety Fund allocation and prioritisation with regions. Smaller schemes are expected to be funded through providers, while regions develop larger projects, indicating that opportunities are likely to emerge through regional and provider-level commissioning.
The funding is drawn from the £6.75 billion Estates Safety Fund, which provides £750 million a year over nine years. NHS guidance requires regions to consider wider benefits, including productivity, transformation and net zero, when prioritising schemes, although individual projects will retain their own scope and approval processes.
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