HEALTHCARE & HOSPITAL FACILITIES HIDDEN RISKS
As the NHS gears up to tackle long waiting lists after the COVID-19 pandemic, now is the time to reduce service risks associated with hospital drainage, says Lanes Group Development Director Richard Leigh.
Drain cleaning is one of the biggest property maintenance challenges at the best of times. In a busy NHS hospital, that challenge can be multiplied several times over.
Some large hospitals report having to respond to pipe blockages up to 10 times a day. The potential disruption to services is signifi cant. The impact on patient care and safety is a worry for clinicians.
The fi nancial cost for hospitals can be draining. While the reputational damage, with patients and visitors seeing and experiencing the problems drain blockages cause, cannot be ignored.
In the last decade or so, hospitals have become more adept at dealing with these often-hidden challenges. As with other sectors of the economy, asset management has become a bigger priority in the NHS.
As a national drainage specialist, we have also played our part. We’re about to carry out a full survey of the drainage system at a general hospital in the North West.
The hospital commissioned the work after we asked if there was a plan showing where a particular drain went to and it turned out there wasn’t one.
The hospital could see the benefi t of having an up-to-date drainage system map. It will reduce cost and time risks associated with future site development – and legal risks related to environmental protection.
Know your drainage system This lack of knowledge about drainage assets is probably the biggest issue we come across when supporting hospitals in cleaning and maintaining drains and sewers.
Hospitals are among the most complicated buildings and organisations. Many have multiple legacy drainage systems dating back centuries in some cases, each built to different standards, capacities and in different conditions.
Using the latest CCTV drainage survey technologies to understand how these different types of assets work together is therefore highly desirable. This is will identify capacity problems, misconnections, even illegal ones, which are not uncommon, repairs required and the level of cleaning needed to reduce blockages to a minimum.
Have suffi cient capacity As hospital sites develop over time, pinch points can develop where drainage capacity is not suffi cient for the demand placed on it. As hospitals become busier to meet rising demand for care, this can be a critical issue.
Even modern systems can have problems. Very recently, an NHS hospital was concerned to fi nd sewage fl ooding
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its newly-installed operating theatres. Our CCTV survey found an existing foul drain did not have the capacity to manage the extra demand the theatres created.
Establish effective maintenance Preventative maintenance is essential. Older hospitals rely cast iron downpipes which can corrode over time, reducing their capacity and creating snag points for items such as wipes and continence pads that are wrongly disposed of down toilets.
Simple hand gels can build up in pipes to the point where we have found 50mm pipes reduced to an effective diameter of 20mm or less. A well thought through planned preventative maintenance programme will greatly reduce the risks created by these problems – risks that can include closure of wards or cancellation of medical procedures.
Build in good drainage access Access to drains can be a major problem for drainage specialists. We regularly fi nd drain covers built over or covered in asphalt. In some cases, chambers do not exist where they are needed to inspect pipes, often as a result of patchwork development.
Drains built into walls or installed in ceiling voids may also not have access points that allow them to be inspected. Access plates are often found to be seized up. Such problems make emergencies worse and limit PPM. A CCTV drain survey is the best way to identify access issues that need to be addressed.
Control what goes down drains There is growing awareness about sewer misuse and the problems it causes. Behaviours that clog household drains occur in hospitals too, but their consequences can be much more serious. This is why effective communication about drain misuse is important.
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