Architecture & construction
mechanical and electrical design, and Turner & Townsend acting as the Trust’s project manager.
“One of the major considerations in developing this scheme was a lack of potential space on what is a very busy site,” Rob Bailey continued. “The new Urgent Care and Trauma Centre had to be constructed within a very tight footprint close to the existing A&E Department. Phase 1, which we completed in June last year, included demolishing part of the existing A&E facilities and constructing a newer, larger section within the resulting void, incorporating the Majors, Trauma, and Emergency Care departments.” The second Phase, being completed this month, involves the creation of new ‘See and Treat’ and Observation Unit facilities, and an Acute Frailty Unit, on the ground floor, while Phase 3 will see the first floor – used temporarily during the first two Phases to house the Ambulatory and ‘Minors’ departments while work has progressed below – converted to a state- of-of-the-art 24-bedded Critical Care Unit.
Remaining operational
throughout Rob Bailey explained: “The existing single- storey A&E Department has remained in operation throughout, as have three associated operating theatres, and AED Radiology, housed within an adjoining two-storey section. Ensuring that all these clinical areas could continue functioning throughout has been a real challenge. The plan has always been to build the ‘Majors’ part of the new Centre on the ground floor. To do this, we moved everybody from the existing A&E section of the ground floor where the new ‘Majors’ area will be, and split the clinical activities into the trauma centre on the ground floor, and the ambulatory care unit in
Paul Fitzpatrick, director of Estates and Facilities at the Aintree University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.
the temporary first floor accommodation.” The biggest initial challenge for the BAM Construction team was creating the space for the new facility, since everywhere on the existing hospital campus that might have provided a suitable location was already occupied. Rob Bailey elaborated: “On our appointment in July 2011 we began developing an enabling strategy which would allow the new UCAT facility to fit into a space where the existing A&E Department was, but in extended form. We knew it would be challenging, and would entail temporary re-location of staff and departments. It was a bit like tackling a sliding tile puzzle; you have all the pieces, but must remove one segment at a time so that you can move all the others around.”
Early enabling works The enabling works commenced in late February 2012, and included relocating the existing trauma and orthopaedic offices;
creating a new link road and main access route; alterations to the main ‘B’ operating theatre and recovery area to allow construction of a new ‘ultraclean’ theatre, and the addition of laminar flow capability to AED theatres. Also part of the works were the provision of a seminar room, creation of new vascular laboratories, and an outpatients’ clinic, refurbishments to the administration areas in Ward 12, the conversion of the former Patient Advice Liaison Service (PALS) unit to create a new Critical Care administration area, establishing a new temporary Outpatients’ Department, and the subsequent re- location and refurbishment of the existing Outpatients’ Department and Fracture Clinic. Rob Bailey said: “We had to complete all this work before we could start on the new-build element of the scheme, which meant substantial re-location of both staff and facilities. All of these facilities were either within the space into which the new UCAT would fit, or closely associated with the Department. One of our key goals was to ensure that we could control the budget, while considering everybody’s aspirations. This saw us ‘plan the price’, as opposed to pricing the plan; this was all about putting costed options in front of the Trust, and saying: ‘If you want to do this, this is what it will cost.’
Meeting aspirations All the options were input to a large spreadsheet to enable the Trust to clearly identify, at the outset, whether the various personnel’s aspirations for particular spaces and equipment were realistic. Rob Bailey added: “At this early stage, and indeed throughout, we have worked with multi-disciplinary personnel – from members of the Trust’s estates and facilities team, to nurses, doctors, consultants, and other users of the service.” As a designated regional Trauma Centre the new facility will admit patients from across its catchment area – Merseyside, Cheshire, and South Lancashire – following a wide range of trauma incidents.
The hospital’s Elective Care Centre. The major teaching hospital employs around 4,500 staff, and, since the Trust became a Foundation Trust on 1 August 2006, has seen over £120 m invested at the site.
40 Health Estate Journal September 2016
One of the reasons for the scheme’s excellent progress, Rob Bailey acknowledged, was that much of the project team had been together throughout. He said: “I have been involved right from interview in 2011 to the current day, and key people – such as my surveyor and support staff – have remained the same. On-site site managers, engineers, planners, and design managers, come and go, but we have kept the nucleus of the team the same, which really helps, because everyone understands my objectives and expectations.” Another contributor to the smooth progress, he said, had been ‘staying in control of the budget and design’. He elaborated: “Paul Fitzpatrick, director of
©Aintree University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
©Aintree University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
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