By Quin Henderson, Founder and CEO, Southbase
Hospitals and healthcare facilities are where New Zealanders meet the health system during their most vulnerable moments, and how we shape and build these spaces is important for wellbeing.
Late last year, Health New Zealand quietly made an innovative change that will reshape how our vital health facilities are delivered. It appointed four suitably qualified construction consortia to a National Panel of Major Project Delivery Partners, with the panel to be used to source construction leaders for each major health project. The aim of using these construction firms consistently across major projects is to help standardise major hospital builds, drive cost efficiencies, provide long-term employment opportunities and, through innovation, speed up delivery.
It’s part of the government’s Building Hospitals Better plan, and is a significant turning point that sees us move away from bespoke, protracted, one-off procurements and towards a more collaborative, programmatic way of delivering our next generation of healthcare facilities.
Traditionally, Aotearoa New Zealand has approached major projects as standalone exercises. Every hospital, school or civic building has been treated as a unique build, with new procurement models, new design teams, new design standards and differing regulatory requirements – but similar outcomes.
Health New Zealand’s panel model recognises that hospitals should not be one-off jobs; they are part of a national programme of care. That means that they deserve a national approach to delivery – one that fosters consistency, accelerates learning and removes unnecessary friction. Instead of lengthy tenders for every project, Health New Zealand can now engage early with trusted partners who already understand the standards, constraints and clinical requirements of these builds. This continuity is where real productivity gains begin.
Standardisation sits at the heart of this shift. It doesn’t mean creating carbon-copy hospitals across the country. It means standardising back-of-house systems, repeatable clinical room layouts that reflect best practice, modular components that can be procured at scale, and digital design environments that reduce rework. The goal is to design once, refine continuously and apply repeatedly.
There’s another benefit that matters enormously to those of us delivering the work. New Zealand’s building and construction sector employs more than 300,000 people – roughly 10 per cent of the workforce. Yet, we operate in one of the most volatile pipeline environments in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Productivity in vertical construction has barely moved in 30 years, and a large part of that is because companies can’t invest with confidence when they don’t know what’s coming next.
A visible, credible pipeline changes that. It allows us to offer employment to apprentices, engineers and cadets, knowing we can give them meaningful careers, not short bursts of work. It gives our subcontractors the confidence to grow regional capability and invest in their own business growth, leading to increased efficiencies in the industry.
It also lets companies like Southbase invest further in modern methods of construction and digital technology – areas that are already driving significant efficiencies in our own operations. These tools reduce rework, improve accuracy and speed up decision-making. For our sector, technology is one of the clearest pathways to progress. But to fully harness it, we need continuity, more than isolated pilots or one-off jobs. This panel model provides the stability that allows technology to compound its benefits over time.
Looking at the bigger picture, this shift is about the fabric of New Zealand. Social infrastructure, hospitals, schools, justice facilities and civic spaces are where we live out our shared values as a country. These are the places where our multicultural society meets every day. When we build this infrastructure well, we strengthen the social ties that hold us together.
Hospitals are the right place to start. We have more than 1200 buildings in our public health estate, and the average age of these is around 47 years. The need is urgent, the investment is substantial, and the benefits of a coordinated, learning-based approach are clear; however, we shouldn’t stop with health. Once we demonstrate that collaborative, programmatic delivery lifts value, and reduces cost and timeframes, the same approach should extend to education, defence, transport hubs, and the broader vertical infrastructure build programme. The pressures of limited resources, long lead times, cost escalation and workforce shortages are consistent across the system.
This will also help us attract skilled people to our industry. We need thousands more construction professionals over the coming decade. That requires us to make this sector more attractive to young talent – to show that construction today involves digital tools, environmental care and innovation at scale. If we can offer the next generation a stable, forward-looking pipeline of projects, supported by modern technology and collaborative delivery, we can build a workforce that reflects the diversity and ambition of the country itself.
The panel model will not solve every challenge, but it creates the foundation for something that New Zealand has long needed: a smarter, more coordinated way to deliver critical infrastructure. There is no doubt that this approach will see us build healthcare facilities faster, deliver better value for taxpayers and lift productivity across the sector.
Once that’s working, we should be bold enough to take the same thinking across our entire national infrastructure programme. Because this isn’t just about constructing buildings – it’s about building a stronger, more resilient New Zealand.