A new chapter for healthcare in the West Country
The New Hospital Programme’s Hospital 2.0 Alliance has moved from procurement into delivery. Graham Dundas, Chief Executive Officer, on what that means for Cornwall and the way this country builds.
This year's Healthcare Estates asks whether the NHS is heading for a two-tier estate. Willmott Dixon's view, drawn from the sites where the next generation of NHS buildings is already going up, is that the gap closes when ambition becomes buildings that open, in major acute hospitals and on the high street alike.
Willmott Dixon will be at Healthcare Estates 2026 at Manchester Central on 13–14 October, on Stand E40 next to the NHS England New Hospital Programme stand, where it will also feature as one of the ten construction partners in the Hospital 2.0 Alliance.
Leading the way on the New Hospital Programme
At Derriford Hospital in Plymouth, Willmott Dixon is building the £140m Emergency Care Building for University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust. It was the first Wave 1 scheme in the New Hospital Programme to start main construction, in October 2025, and in September became the first to top out (below).
The four-storey building will almost double the capacity of an emergency department that has served the South West peninsula for 50 years, adding a Same Day Emergency Care unit, four interventional radiology theatres and five surgical theatres - all delivered alongside one of the busiest emergency departments in the region, which stays open throughout. Derriford is also one of the first schemes to implement the NHS Net Zero Building Standard; using 55% GGBS in the concrete frame has saved 1,625 tonnes of carbon.
Derriford is now the foundation for what comes next. In July, Willmott Dixon signed its Hospital 2.0 Alliance contract (picture below) to deliver the new Women and Children's Hospital for Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust in Truro, bringing maternity, neonatal, paediatric and gynaecology services together in a single, purpose-built facility. The team, supply chain and lessons learned at Derriford will travel 60 miles west with it: two Wave 1 schemes, one region, one team.
Willmott Dixon CEO Graham Dundas, left, with health minister Karin Smyth MP and Ian Dean from Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust
Anastasia Chrysafi, Healthcare & NHP Alliance Lead at Willmott Dixon:
"Trusts don't need another contractor promising to transform their estate. They need partners who have already done the hard part. Derriford shows what the New Hospital Programme looks like when it moves from plan to site, and everything we are learning there is going straight into Truro. That's the evidence we want to share in Manchester, whether a trust is planning a major acute scheme or its first neighbourhood health centre."
Two decades ahead on neighbourhood health
The NHS's shift from hospital to community care, backed by the government's commitment to 250 Neighbourhood Health Centres, is territory Willmott Dixon knows well. It has delivered more than 30 community health centres over the past two decades, 16 of them through NHS LIFT – one of the largest LIFT track records of any contractor, and directly relevant as a new public-private partnership model for neighbourhood health takes shape.
That portfolio includes the Heart of Hounslow Centre for Health, one of Europe's largest primary care centres when it opened; the Tessa Jowell Health Centre in Dulwich, which brought 23 stakeholder groups under one roof; Chiswick Health Centre for NHS Property Services, serving more than 60,000 people with a 77% cut in carbon emissions; and Grove View Integrated Health & Care Hub in Dunstable, built on Cura, Willmott Dixon's pre-designed neighbourhood health platform. Weybridge Health Campus, also for NHS Property Services, is under construction now.
Cura uses a kit-of-parts approach and off-site manufactured components, compliant with HBNs and HTMs, to give commissioners faster delivery and greater cost certainty. Willmott Dixon's Development Solutions team works alongside it to help NHS bodies and local authorities unlock land, funding and business cases.
On the opening day, Willmott Dixon will host a roundtable, "Mind the Gap: Funding, Partnerships and Delivery of Neighbourhood Health Centres", with senior representatives from NHS England, the Department of Health and Social Care and industry partners. Building on its panel debate at UKREiiF 2026, the session will focus on the funding models, partnerships and delivery approaches needed to turn national policy into neighbourhood health centres that communities can use.
Recognising the best of the sector
Willmott Dixon is sponsoring the New Build Project of the Year category at the Healthcare Estates Awards, while the Acute Medical Unit at Royal Sussex County Hospital, delivered by Willmott Dixon Interiors, is shortlisted for Refurbishment of the Year – a reminder that closing the gap depends as much on transforming existing estate as on building new.
Over the past decade Willmott Dixon has delivered more than 100 healthcare projects across acute, mental health, community and neighbourhood settings, most of them in live clinical environments.
Trusts, ICBs and partners who want to talk about their estate plans can meet the team at Stand E40, or arrange a meeting in advance with Anastasia Chrysafi at anastasia.chrysafi@willmottdixon.co.uk
For more information, visit: https://www.healthcare-estates.com/exhibitor/willmott-dixon-construction-limited/