The permanent modular building delivered for Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust by Portakabin will house consultation and treatment rooms for community mental health and crisis teams in Stockton-on-Tees and is the first of its kind for the region.
Using Modern Methods of Construction (MMC), 25 modules were precision engineered and constructed at the Portakabin manufacturing facility in York and transported to the site on Durham Road in Stockton-on-Tees to create Brook House.
Brook House brings some of the Trust’s community adult mental health services into one site, helping them work closely together and providing a modern and improved environment for their colleagues and the people they support. It will also be home to the Trust’s north intensive home treatment team (IHT).
Creating the building using modular construction meant the facility opened on time in September 2023. Modular buildings from Portakabin can be delivered up to 70% quicker than traditional construction making them the go-to choice when there is an urgent need.
The Trust’s current premises for providing mental health services was being repurposed so space was needed urgently so as not to disrupt the continuity of care in the area.
James Pearson, Divisional Managing Director for Portakabin comments: “We’re delighted to hand over Brook House to Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust. It’s incredibly important to us to be able to keep disruption to an absolute minimum for busy healthcare providers and part of this is being able to achieve up to 70% of the final fit-out in our factory before it reaches our customer. That means far fewer workers and materials travelling to and from a site and a much faster hand-over of buildings.”
Ashleigh Pennington, North Tees intensive home treatment team manager, said: “Brook House has brought some of our community adult mental health services into the same site, which has definitely improved our way of working. We are able to work more closely together and ‘pop next door’ to discuss the care we provide to an individual, as opposed to waiting for a phone call or email.”
Portakabin worked within fixed cost parameters to generate as much usable office and consultation space as possible for the clinical teams and had to work to a challenging programme to meet the Trust’s deadlines.
Patients and Trust colleagues now benefit from clinical space, consultation rooms, a welcoming reception area, open plan and cellular offices, kitchenette and amenities. Externally, the building ties in with the rest of the existing estate and is complete with a small section of feature external finishing.
