The opening of the UK’s National Rehabilitation Centre (NRC), which was originally planned for the end of this year, will now go ahead next summer after the project was “heavily impacted” by the weather.
The £105m NRC will be a 70-bed purpose-built rehabilitation centre in Nottinghamshire; bringing together the NHS and two academic partners in Loughborough and Nottingham universities. It is part of the New Hospital Programme – a public project to build five new hospitals in the UK by 2030 with investment of around £20bn.
Its overriding goal is to become a world-leading national centre of excellence for rehabilitation. It aims to use knowledge across defence and NHS medicine for mutual benefit and to stimulate new ways of solving problems.
It will also invest in, and enable, research and innovation in rehab, support training and education and help to speed the development and usage of new technologies that can improve patient outcomes.
Having originally slated the end of this year for its opening date, it will now welcome its first patients next summer, as director Miriam Duffy told NR Times: “The NRC is set to be the first facility of its kind in the UK, and will revolutionise rehabilitative care with its innovative approach and state-of-the-art technology, we want to ensure that when it opens its doors that it meets the highest standards and provides the very best environment possible for our patients.
“In addition to normal external mitigating factors experienced during any major build, weather has heavily impacted the construction of the NRC.
“Despite their hard work, the construction teams have lost double the number of days due to adverse weather conditions, compared to the number of days normally lost to weather on a programme such as this.
“Therefore, we continue to work closely with our construction partners IHP to put mitigations in place to allow us to open the NRC in Summer 2025, and we look forward to welcoming patients to a world-class facility that sets new benchmarks in rehabilitation care.”
She added the NRC’s recruitment process would begin “at scale from January 2025”, although some roles are already open for applications.
On the potential impact of the recent change of UK government on the project, Duffy said: “The new government is committed to delivering the New Hospital Programme, recognising the need to replace the infrastructure in the NHS.”
The NRC will be based at the Stanford Hall Rehabilitation Estate near Loughborough, which is already home to the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre which opened in 2018. It is being built by IHP, a joint venture between VINCI Building and Sir Robert McAlpine.
Watch the latest drone footage of the project, from July 2024, here and see an animated walkthrough of how it will eventually look here.
