Health

The construction costs associated with Hospitals and health provision are dramatically increasing as is the volume of work in this sector throughout Europe. This is driven by the large post war generation who are living longer, requiring more sophisticated treatments and procedures and at costs that are potentially a huge strain on national budgets. The models selected are a sequence from simple primary care provisions (local doctors) through regional, main and finally teaching hospitals. A trend is to attempt to treat many more patients at the more local (less expensive) level which is seeing more or expanded local health centres. Conversely at the other end there is a demand for very large new hospitals often featuring a major national treatment specialty (like heart surgery). The costs and budgets of some of these new hospitals are so massive that there is an increasing cooperation between countries to share the experience and promote best practice. The pooling of expertise and recording effective outcomes has become a pan-Europe issue and indeed between the members of the Euro Alliance. The experience and innovative methodology throughout the Alliance members has created a shared experience to benefit of all. Increasingly the physical building has become a minor part of the construction costs as advance technical requirements increase. The M&E and specialist equipment costs are very major feature of his sector. Functional rates per patient are an interesting guide to the cost planning requirements