Countess of Chester Hospital: A PPP to prevent virus contamination?

PPPs: high quality targets for ancillary services

The Public-Private Partnership agenda in the hospital sector is progressively subdividing into the provision of overarching infrastructure and related-services, typically the design, building, financing (well, prefinancing really) operation and maintenance of ancillary services, and the support to health stewards in more specific projects which require a particular skill set, technology, technical aptitude or all of the above.

Illustrative of this are the substantial number of PPP projects in energy performance or energy efficiency, enabling hospitals which remain public infrastructure to comply with increasingly stringent environmental and energy consumption norms.

In the set of ancillary services which are also often entrusted to a private sector partner through a long-term, risks and rewards-based PPP contract, sterilization and decontamination rank high.

This is the case for the Countess of Chester Hospital, as signaled this week by the PPP Bulletin, friends and partners of the Decide Hub. PPP Bulletin highlights the release of an NHS tender notice for “suppliers able to provide finance to support the design, building and equipping of decontamination solutions”.

A core function of healthcare assets, sterilization and decontamination are ruled by extremely rigorous technical norms and standards and demand regular upgrades, investment in equipment, qualified staff and adequate technologies.

In this context, the Countess of Chester Hospital is looking for a partner to design, build, equip, but also prefinance as well as operate and maintain the circa £375 million Sterile Services and Endoscopy Decontamination (SSD) Facility.

Solutions brought by private partners are expected to up the quality and availability of SSD services benefiting from the latest technological developments which are more necessary than ever in times of pandemic, with private sector ventures offering expert solutions in virus containment cleaning techniques.

Check this news and more information on the PPP Bulletin website: Click here