Belfast practice handed £295,000 contract to design Northern Irish covid hospital

Local practice Todd Architects has been handed a deal to provide design services on a job to build a Nightingale hospital in Northern Ireland as fears of the country being able to handle a second covid-19 wave mount.

Northern Ireland was the only home nation that did not build additional hospital capacity during the UK’s first wave of the pandemic earlier this year.

The contract, which was awarded to Todd Architects by Northern Health social care trust, is worth £295,000.

The new facility will be built at the Whiteabbey Hospital (pictured) in Newtownabbey in County Antrim.

> The teams behind the covid-19 hospitals

The project, which was procured by CPD Health Projects on behalf of the trust, was awarded directly to Todd Architects, which also has offices in London and Dublin.

It said: "While this is not normal practice and would not normally be recommended, it is noted that under the EU procurement regulations allowances have been made to derogate from standard procurement timescales and procedures where unforeseeable circumstances have resulted in an extreme urgency to provide supplies or services.”

There were seven Nightingale hospitals built across England during the first wave of the coronavirus crisis, as well as the NHS Louisa Jordan hospital in Glasgow and a handful of facilities in Wales.