First look inside pioneering NHS National Rehabilitation Centre
Construction of the country’s first NHS National Rehabilitation Centre continues at pace and this month’s photos give us the first glimpse of what inside the building will look like.
The 70-bed purpose-built rehabilitation centre near Loughborough, which will be staffed and run by Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, aims to transform rehabilitation in the UK and is due to begin receiving its first patients in Summer 2025.
Inside the building, all the walls are now up and are being boarded and plastered, lifts have been installed underfloor heating is being laid throughout the site.
The £105million NRC programme will create a specialist facility combines NHS care with research and innovation from our two academic partners – the University of Nottingham and Loughborough University – and is part of the New Hospital Programme.
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 construction is being carried out by IHP, a joint venture between VINCI Building and Sir Robert McAlpine.
Ryan McCormack, Head of Programme Construction and Commercial for the NRC, said: “Over the last year it’s been fantastic to see the structure of the building emerge from the ground and becoming weathertight, now it’s even more exciting to see the inside of the facility taking shape too.
“All the plans and designs that we’ve worked on over several years are suddenly becoming real, and we’re beginning to get a glimpse of how impressive and transformative this rehabilitation centre will be when we open our doors to patients next summer.
“We look forward to sharing more images of the rooms and facilities in the coming months as we head towards completion of the project.”
Drone footage shows the five main pavilions of the ground floor of the NRC – Facilities Management areas, the café and staff area, the innovation and education pavilion, patient zone and Research and Innovation pavilion, and the main gym and therapy activity and treatment spaces.
The first and second floors will house the south-facing patient bedrooms overlooking the Leicestershire countryside, as well as some treatment and support spaces.
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 .