Project details

University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust set out to reduce energy use and carbon emissions across its estate, aligning with the NHS ambition to reach Net Zero. The Trust needed to identify viable decarbonisation options, secure funding, manage procurement, and deliver measurable savings — all while maintaining safe, uninterrupted patient services across a large and operationally demanding healthcare estate.

Recognising the scale and urgency of the challenge, the Trust engaged the team at H4P to assess the situation and design a clear, competitive route to delivery.

H4P worked with senior stakeholders to develop an innovative procurement and delivery solution that brought energy-saving initiatives to the project quickly and effectively. This included establishing a four-year decarbonisation contractor framework, providing the Trust with a structured, repeatable model for delivery. The approach unlocked circa £1 million in guaranteed annual savings in the first phase and helped secure £3 million in grant funding to support implementation.

As a result, the programme progressed from ambition to action. The Trust achieved measurable progress against its decarbonisation objectives, strengthened its internal delivery capability, and gained external recognition, winning a Building Better Healthcare Award for excellence in sustainable retrofit.

University Hospitals Birmingham now has a proven, scalable framework to continue reducing carbon and energy costs over the coming years. Demonstrating how the right leadership and delivery model can turn complex sustainability goals into practical, investable programmes with significant impact.

I feel enormously proud of this project and the results it achieved. I am grateful to the Estates Team and executives for trusting me and my team in adopting this previously untested approach.

Jan Ponsford – H4P Project Manager