HSJ Partnership Award success for state-of-the-art Health and Care Academy

The Northumbria Health and Care Academy has won a top national award, recognising the collaboration behind what is one of the only facilities of its kind in the country.

The partnership between Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, Northumbria Healthcare Facilities Management, Northumbria Primary Care and Assura plc landed the Healthcare Infrastructure Project of the Year title at the HSJ Partnership Awards last week (Thursday, March 20).

The £32million facility, on the site of the Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital in Cramlington, features a state-of-the-art NHS education and training academy for nursing, midwifery and allied health professionals.

It is also home to a GP practice, NPC Northumbria Way, which is part of Northumbria Primary Care, a not-for-profit, at-scale provider of primary care services in Northumberland and North Tyneside.

The development could not have been delivered without Assura plc, which co-commissioned the building with the trust, and the project team at Northumbria Healthcare Facilities Management, which is also involved in the building’s ongoing management.

The award citation described it as a ‘first-of-its-kind project’ which is ‘now training the future NHS workforce from a multidisciplinary site that also delivers care to the local community’.

David Hedgcock, managing director of Northumbria Primary Care, said: “Our whole ethos as an at-scale provider of primary care services is about collaboration and partnership working, both within primary care and beyond.

“We believe that the Academy is a great example of a partnership approach between primary, community and secondary care. We will continue to look for opportunities to innovate for the benefit of our patients, staff and wider communities.

“It is so important that primary care takes an active interest in workforce planning for the future; closer links with academic institutions and creating vocational training places like at NPC Northumbria Way are a key aspect of our strategy.”

Emma Dawes, Northumbria Healthcare’s head of nursing, midwifery and allied health professional education and workforce development, said: “Supporting our current staff to develop and bringing through our workforce of the future is a key focus for us. We have underlined our commitment to this with the Health and Care Academy, which has already brought so many advantages in the nine months it has been open.

“We are proud to be able to offer a range of programmes that allow our future workforce to earn while they learn. This is supported by our partnership with the University of Sunderland, and it has been great to work with all the different partners on this project who have worked together to deliver something special.”

Andrew Cooper, Assura development director, said: “We’re delighted to have been recognised at the HSJ Partnership Awards. 

“The Health and Care Academy is an incredible facility, built on the commitment and close collaboration of everyone involved in its delivery. We knew the project was ambitious but collectively we had a clear vision that we have seen come to life in the impact that the Academy has already made in the brief time it’s been open.”

Last month, it was announced that the Academy has become the first healthcare building in the UK to achieve Gold WELL Certification™ from the International WELL Building Institute.

Other partners on the development included P+HS Architects, Meldrum Group and Hilson Moran.