TEMPORARY BUILDINGS Mary Smallbone – Vanguard Healthcare
Ensuring health estates are fit for the future
Smart asset management strategies play a crucial role in health estate economics worldwide, and refurbishment does not necessarily have to always mean downtime and unrecoverable costs.
Estates and facilities management executives are always looking for innovative solutions to help get their estates into shape while maintaining clinical and revenue generating services. One of these solutions is the deployment of mobile surgical facilities that can be quickly incorporated into a hospital’s core services and clinical operations. A great deal of hospital stock is beginning
to show its age. Some may be lucky enough to work in brand new establishments, but that is not always the case and as budgets get tighter regular maintenance regimes can become an easy target for cost-cutting. ‘Showing their age’ is the euphemism, no
doubt resonating with those who have day-to- day responsibility for hospital estates, many with legacy issues around inefficient capital equipment such as boilers and laundries, but also including operating theatres and wards. Growing numbers of elderly people are also having an impact on the UK’s National Health Service (NHS). The Department of Health in the UK estimates that the average cost of providing hospital and community health services for a person aged 85 years or more is around three times greater than for a person aged 65 to 74 years, and many of these rising pressures rapidly become estates issues too, whether it is finding ways to
‘Some hospitals face situations that demand fast action that often requires temporary facilities to be put in place at short notice.’
46 A typical mobile operating unit.
increase a hospital’s capacity or refurbishing facilities that have suffered the wear and tear of greater usage. Ageing properties are naturally less
efficient and more problem prone, which in turn, can lead to higher preventative maintenance costs. Quick-thinking and a more lateral approach to problem solving is often needed to tackle estate issues as an alternative to lengthy and expensive pre- planned maintenance programmes, or indeed even longer term build of new permanent facilities. Clearly, all hospital facilities need updating and refurbishment at some point, but suspending patient care while this takes place simply is not an option for many.
Mobile surgical facilities Vanguard Healthcare Solutions works closely with the NHS and private healthcare providers to supply mobile surgical facilities during periods of refurbishment or to provide additional capacity in order to meet high demands for surgery. The company specialises in temporary surgical
solutions, and has overseen more than 161,000 patient procedures on board its fleet to date. The estates teams with whom the company
works closely – which includes teams in Italy, the Netherlands and the Nordic countries – have realised that finding an interim facility to allow operations to continue as planned offers an advantage with real financial advantages besides. Maintaining capacity while core facilities undergo refurbishment or new build makes sense. Some hospitals face situations that demand fast action that often requires
Mary Smallbone
Having qualified and practiced as an NHS theatre nurse in her early career, Mary Smallbone has since worked in senior management positions in the private healthcare sector. Today she is director of marketing and operations at Vanguard Healthcare. She is responsible for promotion of a 40-strong fleet of mobile surgical units and coordinating the company’s facilities across the UK and Europe.
IFHE DIGEST 2013
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