University To Research New Health And Social Care Infrastructure
By News England

The University of Reading is to share in a £7.2 million research grant to help create a 21st century infrastructure for health and social care. A consortium of universities including Reading has been awarded the research grant by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) under its Innovative Manufacturing Research Centre initiative.

The team at Reading is led by Professor Colin Gray of the School of Construction Management and Engineering and will be working closely with the Institute of Health Care Sciences. Two of the overall themes of the programme managed at Reading are Procurement for Innovation and briefing for patient centred care through Patient Pathways.

Professor Gray said: “The grant comes at a time of profound change in the UK’s health and social care services and unprecedented investment to renew its built and technical infrastructure. Tens of billions of pounds are being spent building new hospitals and other facilities, as well as on new IT systems and medical technologies.

 
“But technological and scientific advances, new policies and care practices, and rising patient expectations all mean that the infrastructure planned today may not be suitable in twenty years’ time. The Centre has a programme of research to develop solutions to meet the likely demands for healthcare facilities and other infrastructure that will arise over the next twenty years.
 
“Ensuring the massive investment in infrastructure is right for the emerging forms of care delivery requires careful planning and innovative approaches, yet this has proved a major challenge for policy makers and the care services. The Health and Care Infrastructure Research and Innovation Centre (HaCIRIC) is being created to tackle these challenges.”

The project will bring together teams from Imperial College Salford, Loughborough and the University of Reading.  The ‘virtual’ centre is coordinated by Imperial College’s Tanaka Business School.