The grand feature staircase, modern ensuite bathrooms and solar panels on the roof are now all in place at the first NHS National Rehabilitation Centre (NRC), as plans which have been in the pipeline for a decade continue to come to life.
The 70-bed purpose-built rehabilitation centre near Loughborough will be staffed and run by Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust and aims to transform rehabilitation in the UK. The £105million NRC programme is part of the New Hospital Programme.
As 2025 progresses and the NRC prepares to begin accepting its first patients in the summer, construction efforts at the site near Loughborough continue to gather pace, with more than 200 tradespeople working on the build each day.
Inside the building, the statement staircase has been installed in the main atrium where patients will first enter the centre, and bedrooms continue to take shape as bedheads are installed and the en-suite bathrooms fitted. Elsewhere, flooring is being laid and miles of wiring installed.
The latest drone footage shows the solar panels in place which will help to power the building alongside air source heat pumps, as well as the metal framework progressing along the outside of the building, ready for the final rainscreen cladding.
Ryan McCormack, Head of Commercial and Construction for the NRC, said: “With fewer than six months to go to when we will be welcoming our first patients, it’s exciting to see how quickly the interior of the building is changing on an almost day to day basis.
“It’s been a pleasure to see this incredible building emerge from the ground up, and these next few months are where it will all suddenly come to life as more and more of the fixtures and fittings are installed and finishes are complete, ready for our very first patients.”
The construction is being carried out by IHP, a joint venture between VINCI Building and Sir Robert McAlpine.
The Stanford Hall Rehabilitation Estate near Loughborough, already home to the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre which opened in 2018, was carefully selected as the site for the NRC to bring together these two centres of excellence and drive rehabilitation standards both nationally and internationally.
The design of the NRC uses modern methods of construction and will be highly energy efficient, with plans for the building to support the NHS ambition to be Carbon Net Zero by 2045.
Work continues to integrate the Smart Hospital design to make the NRC as digitally advanced as possible, with the capability to incorporate additional cutting-edge technology in the future.
Find out more about the construction of the NRC on our NRC website.
Building, Design & Construction Magazine | The Choice of Industry Professionals
