A prospective health impact review of the redevelopment of Central Manchester Hospitals

Health Impact Assessment (HIA) is increasingly being acknowledged as an important tool for considering the health implications of projects and programmes of activity at local, national and international levels. However, standard HIA tools can be difficult to apply when the policy of programme under consideration is particularly complex and intertwined or where significant time, resource and skill constraints are involved. This paper describes a Health Impact Review (HIR) of the plans for a major redevelopment of Central Manchester Hospitals (England). This approach to HIA drew not only from HIR but also from Integrated Impact Assessment (IIA) in order to produce a summary of the most significant health impacts of a policy, programme or project in a more timely and cost-effective way. This example highlights the potential for involving Local Authority Overview and Scrutiny Committees in the HIA process as a way of ensuring that the recommendations of HIA are mainstreamed as part of the ongoing development of projects.