Scheme will be first New Hospital Programme facility in East of England

Laing O’Rourke has been picked as the preferred contractor to build a new specialist cancer research hospital in Cambridge.

The company has been appointed under a pre-construction services contract, which will combine an NHS clinical space with three cancer research institutes.

It comes after the 26,300 sq m facility’s outline business case was approved by NHS England, the Department of Health and Social Care and HM Treasury.

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Source: Laing O’Rourke

How the Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital will look when completed

The seven-storey hospital will be based at the Cambridge Biomedical Campus and will be the first hospital delivered in the East of England as part of the government’s New Hospital Programme.

Work is expected to cost around £220m with the job designed by specialist architect NBBJ and Aecom carrying out cost management work.

>> Read more: Government unveils £20bn New Hospital Programme relaunch

>> Read more: Rebooting the New Hospital Programme: Is this the solution to the NHS backlog?

O’Rourke’s healthcare sector lead Rory Pollock said it would “maximise the use of modern

methods of construction” to improve programme delivery and cost certainty.

O’Rourke was appointed after a competitive process using the Crown Commercial Service’s Construction Works and Associated Services 2 framework.

A full planning application for Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital was submitted to Cambridge City Council in January and a decision is expected later this year.

Work to build the new hospital is set to begin in 2024.

Laing O’Rourke has also been lined up to build a huge cancer research facility in Oxford designed by Foster & Partners and bankrolled by American billionaire Lawrence J.Ellison, the world’s seventh richest person.

Proposals for a UK branch of the Los Angeles-based Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine consist of a complex of buildings spread across two sites and linked by a 250m-long elevated timber walkway. The scheme was approved in the spring.