Andrew Panniker drafted in as 鈥榟ospital construction specialist鈥�

The man who led the construction of the temporary covid-19 hospital at London ExCel has been brought in to provide advice on the construction of a new hospital in Essex.

The Princess Alexandra hospital in Harlow was one of six hospitals to be handed a share of 拢2.7bn in September 2019 as part of the first wave of the government鈥檚 health infrastructure plan.

NHS Nightingale Excel - Fully Equipped Bed Wards

The hospital at the ExCeL had an initial capacity for 500 patients

Andrew Panniker, who is the director of estates at the Royal Free Hospital and managing director of its subsidiary RFL Property Services, has been brought in to provide advice on the project.

Michael Meredith, director of strategy and estates at the Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust, said: 鈥淎ndrew Panniker is an independent advisor to our board. His role is to provide board members with independent technical support and guidance as we progress our new hospital programme.

鈥淎ndrew is engaged through Royal Free Property Services and is not a member of our Trust.鈥�

According to James Hepburn, BDP鈥檚 lead architect on the Nightingale project, Panniker was the man in charge of the scheme.

Speaking to 黑洞社区 last year he said: 鈥淯nknown to me, he [Panniker] and Matt [Shaw, chief executive of Great Ormond Street Hospital] had had a meeting at the ExCeL with the Army.

鈥淗e said could we help? I made a few phone calls to pull together some architects and engineers and we all turned up at the ExCeL on Monday morning to meet Andrew and Matt, not knowing what to expect.鈥�

Panniker was previously director of environment at Homerton University Hospital NHS trust for nine years.

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