12.5 Achieving good design quality is not a matter of applying quality control techniques, rather it is how to build quality into the scheme from the outset. For a complex scheme, the outset means a point well before the design commences. The NHSScotland body needs to ensure that the right skills and resources are available to the project team at each step.
12.6 Two key areas which must be addressed when developing the proposals for a scheme include the degree of flexibility and adaptability of buildings the NHSScotland body requires to allow for changes in the operations of the NHSScotland body throughout the contract period:
• flexibility - during a building's lifetime its constituent parts may have to fulfil more than one function, due to technical advances and changes in medical treatment techniques. Flexibility should be an in-built feature of the design to allow for minor adaptations and alterations to be undertaken without the NHS body incurring excessive costs. The capacity for the building to respond to these changes will also assist in guarding against the risk of the structure becoming obsolete before the contract end;
• adaptability - the capacity for major change for any healthcare building in relation to either its expansion or contraction is a risk that should be estimated at the time of the initial design conception.
Relevant design guidance/protocols should be applied