Anglia Ruskin School of Medicine

Overview

The Anglia Ruskin School of Medicine is a flagship medical education facility, providing a world-class training environment for future doctors and healthcare professionals. As the first purpose-built medical school in Essex, the facility ensures that students have access to advanced clinical training spaces, simulation suites, and digital learning environments, preparing them for careers in frontline healthcare.

Developed in collaboration with Anglia Ruskin University, the project delivers a three-storey, state-of-the-art training centre, featuring anatomy teaching spaces, body storage facilities, and multi-disciplinary clinical skills laboratories. Designed to be future-proofed for expansion, the facility aligns with the latest NHS and General Medical Council (GMC) standards, ensuring excellence in medical education and research.

The project was delivered through the SCAPE 3 National Framework, integrating Building Information Modelling (BIM Level 2), energy-efficient systems, and sustainable design principles, ensuring that the facility meets long-term environmental and operational performance targets.

Chelmsford location

The School of Medicine is on the university’s Chelmsford campus and aims that least 50 per cent of students who study there will be from the East of England.

It's much needed as the national workforce Minimum Data Set for General Practice shows Essex is suffering from medical workforce shortages across primary care, mental health and acute care, with Mid and South Essex area having the highest percentage of GPs aged over 54 in the country, and the second highest patients-per-GP ratio in the country.

Our team will have helped the county deal with this challenge!

First class facilities

The School of Medicine features specialist teaching space, lecture theatre, and an anatomy suite. It follows similar campus facilities we've delivered across the UK, such creating the award-winning Centre for Medicine at the University of Leicester, the UK’s largest non-residential Passivhaus project.

We also created a new London Campus for Coventry University in Dagenham, the new Town House for Kingston University, refurbishing the Dreadnought Building for Greenwich University and adding the Computational Foundry at Swansea University. Our experience of working in live environments is one factor for being chosen for this project.

Key Features & Educational Benefits

The Anglia Ruskin School of Medicine provides a cutting-edge educational environment, designed to support practical learning, clinical training, and digital innovation. State-of-the-art medical training facilities include:

• Advanced anatomy and clinical skills labs, equipping students with hands-on medical training in a simulated hospital environment.

• Specialist body storage and dissection rooms, ensuring compliance with medical training and ethical guidelines.

• High-fidelity simulation suites, enabling students to practice emergency response scenarios in a controlled setting.

• Multi-disciplinary learning spaces, supporting team-based, collaborative medical education.

• Flexible lecture theatres and seminar rooms, integrating digital learning technologies and live-streaming capabilities.

Sustainable & Energy-Efficient Design

• BREEAM Excellent certification, ensuring environmental sustainability and energy efficiency.

• Natural ventilation and daylight optimisation, creating a comfortable, well-lit learning environment.

• Smart building controls and monitoring, allowing energy-efficient operation and long-term performance tracking.

• Sustainable material selection, reducing embodied carbon and improving building longevity.

Through these cutting-edge facilities and sustainable design choices, the project delivers an outstanding, future-proofed medical education hub for Anglia Ruskin University.

Professor Iain Martin, Vice Chancellor of Anglia Ruskin University:

“This is a very significant step towards us helping address the urgent need for more doctors and healthcare professionals in the UK, and specifically in Essex.”

Chris Tredget, managing director of Willmott Dixon in the northern Home Counties said, “Our experience in the sector allowed us to create a pioneering medical learning facility that is providing training to a new generation of medical staff who can work in healthcare across the county.”