NHS Ayrshire & Arran has named Balfour Beatty as the preferred bidder for a new acute mental health and community hospital being built on the Ayrshire Central Hospital site in Scotland.

The 206-bed facility, which will cost £47 million (US$78 million), is being funded using the non-profit distributing (NPD) model, which is managed by the Scottish Futures Trust (SFT) on behalf of the Scottish government.

The NPD model is a form of PFI where dividends to investors are capped which is used in Scotland.

Balfour Beatty beat out shortlisted rivals Morgan Sindall and Bilfinger Berger to win the project. Over the next couple of months, NHS Ayrshire & Arran staff will work with Balfour Beatty's design team to finalise the detailed design of the development.

The principal requirement of the project is to design, finance, construct and maintain accommodation to complement the facilities and services that presently exist on the site for a period of 25 years plus the construction. This include engineering services, traffic management, and the shared soft services, e.g. FM services, which currently operate across the whole site.

Financial close is scheduled for June 13, 2014, construction is expected to start this summer 2014 with the new facility due to open in spring 2016.

The facility will provide 206 beds for people and facilities will include adult acute mental health care, mental health and addiction rehabilitation, long-term care and rehabilitation for older people and outpatient clinics and treatments.

NHS Ayrshire & Arran provides a wide range of  specialist healthcare services for people across Ayrshire and Arran and invests around £0.6 billion (US$1 billion) a year in healthcare services. It employs 10,453 staff and is responsible for monitoring, protecting and improving the health needs of its 366,860 population, (approximately 7.3% of the population of Scotland), over its 2,500  square mile area. This area is coterminous with the three local authorities of East, North and South Ayrshire and includes the island communities of Arran and Cumbrae.