The new accommodation includes meeting rooms, flexible open-plan workspaces, and breakout areas, as well as consultants’ offices on upper floors and areas for support teams

Monkwearmouth Development Ltd (MDL), a joint venture between Sir Robert McAlpine Capital Ventures and Argon Property Development Solutions, has handed over its first development to NTW Solutions at Monkwearmouth Hospital in Sunderland.

With funding from Railpen, the new, modern, fit-for-purpose building provides a welcoming, level, and accessible front entrance to the main outpatient facilities at the existing hospital.

In addition to the new entrance and reception area, the accommodation includes meeting rooms, flexible open-plan workspaces, and breakout areas, as well as consultants’ offices on upper floors and areas for their support teams.

The new building has created the perfect office environment for employees at the site and encourages collaborative working and support.

It also houses a Changing Places facility, and the new ‘Café Bede’ community café is open to the general public, visitors, staff, and service users across the hospital.

The café includes areas for inside and outside dining and is home to a time capsule that was placed in the ground during the construction works telling the story of the build, the history of the site, and the previous building for people to read in years to come.

Sir Robert McAlpine completed the construction of the 3,287sq m, three-storey building for MDL over 19 months, with the facility achieving a design-stage BREEAM ‘Excellent’ standard.

There is also a new entrance and reception area

In addition to a replacement tree-lined staff car park, the development delivers level access and a landscaped piazza area including seating and extensive planting, along with a memorial garden.

The external works have transformed the previous parking area that fronts onto Newcastle Road and creates better connectivity within the estate for hospital users, staff, and visitors.

MDL worked with NTW Solutions, a limited company established by Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust, to provide premises that will enable NTW Solutions to deliver improved facilities and a range of important services to the trust.

David Peck from Monkwearmouth Development LTD, said: “We could not be more delighted with the outcome, which has been a true collaboration between all the parties involved, who have created a building that is streets ahead of the one it replaced and that will make a significant difference to patients that rely on it for their care and the people that use it as their place of work.”

David Hosken, project director at Sir Robert McAlpine Capital Ventures, added: “We are immensely proud of delivering a unique facility using an innovative development solution, helping NTW Solutions renew its estate with a quality building designed for modern ways of working.

“This fantastic project allows us to continue to build on our successes working alongside NHS trusts to deliver developments with positive outcomes for the people who will use them.”