HEALTHCARE & HOSPITAL FACILITIES A JOURNEY INTO HEALTHCARE
Sonia Murton, Founder and MD at Westbury Property Maintenance, established a thriving start- up in the UK construction and FM space in 2017, just over two years before a global pandemic hit. We caught up with her to share her insights on the journey so far, the challenges of entering the healthcare sector, and delivering estate maintenance services during the pandemic.
for bathroom/toilet/shower room upgrades as well as communal areas.
Being a smaller contractor, we were able to adapt our business rapidly to provide bespoke services, and we quickly adjusted and became experienced in working within this critical sector. However, being completely absorbed within healthcare during the pandemic brought numerous challenges.
There’s a big difference between fixing a leak or electrics in hospitality or retail compared to a healthcare facility where service users are living. This service requires much more of a human element to the work and additional risks for the engineers. The considerations for our staff and the clients’ staff and service users were completely different.
In September 2017 I opened Westbury Property Maintenance. It was just myself and three multi skilled engineers, from a small office in Sidcup, SE London. We started out with two clients. By the time that Covid-19 hit, just two and a half years later, we employed 30+ people and 80% of our business was in retail and hospitality.
Our two biggest revenue streams were closing due to lockdown. 1,000 pubs and 700 betting shops. I had already been talking to a few healthcare companies in early 2020 and as soon as I knew about lockdown, I formed a plan and focused on targeting healthcare. I quickly went out to everyone within my network who worked in healthcare FM and estates.
I knew all healthcare FM providers were under pressure to keep these critical facilities open, yet so many contractors just stopped working. Suddenly there was a big void, and they were losing suppliers.
I contacted facilities managers and spoke to them about services and getting on their frameworks. My local NHS Trust Guys and St Thomas started to send jobs through for small works and then major projects including ground works for tarmac surfacing car parks, and rehabilitation areas for wheelchair users. We were then successful in winning a bid for a health centre refurbishment and our NHS story started there.
At the same time, we were selected as a Tier 1 contractor for a prestigious private healthcare group. The group had 50 adult care facilities and hospitals in our region, and we were contracted to cover all aspects of building fabric and electrical and drainage, reactive services 24/7 365, and project and small works. We also gained a smaller healthcare (adult care) provider and were contracted
44 | TOMORROW’S FM
The safety of our engineers was paramount. If a drain was blocked or a toilet leaked in a room where someone had Covid, it would still need fixing. Our engineers had to deal with being chaperoned when in sensitive environments and volatile situations, wear PPE for the duration in warm conditions, all in the heart of the pandemic. None of us had experienced this type of working environment.
We introduced Toolbox talks for working in restrictive environments and taught engineers how to update and support the on-site staff in the safest, most practicable manner. Training was provided for working with vulnerable people, working with the service assistants, carers, and people who are already stressed out at work. Many were under pressure and a lot of them had chosen not to be vaccinated.
New procedures were constantly communicated, and where Covid was onsite and we had an emergency, we had to ensure our engineers had the correct PPE. Another major hurdle was the vaccination issue, as some of our engineers were unvaccinated and could not work on these sites, so we were under pressure to perform to SLAs and KPIs. Next came testing. Before entering sites, engineers had to perform Lateral Flow Tests and wait until results came through. The back-office staff had to allow enough time to complete the works and ensure the right people were in the right place at the right time, all in accordance with site restrictions and procedures.
The pandemic is an example of how a partnering contractor can perform in exceptional circumstances. The entire team responded with skill and commitment. With this experience under our belt, we are a trusted partner and now have a Specialist Healthcare Team in-house.
http://westburypropertymaintenance.co.uk twitter.com/TomorrowsFM
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