HVAC SYSTEMS
Propelling the NHS to Net Zero with smart pump tech
Jason Hartigan, Specification Sales manager at Wilo UK, discusses the need to correctly specify and maintain pumps in healthcare settings, and describes a recent pump upgrade project that Wilo undertook at the Sunderland Royal Hospital.
Any healthcare setting must run like clockwork to always ensure patient safety. At the heart of hospital services, hidden away from patients, most staff, and the public, are plant rooms. An area that could be described as the ‘engine room’ of any hospital, plant rooms transport water and other mission-critical supplies around the building. This is also where circulating and booster pumps can be found; these appliances are crucial to distributing hot and cold water throughout the building within seconds. There’s a reason why these plant rooms and pumps simply cannot fail. If they do, this could disrupt clinical activity, see wards shut down, and create an unsafe environment for both patients and staff. At a time when the NHS is already under unprecedented pressure with a growing backlog of patients in need of assistance, this must not happen.
Major contributor to carbon emissions
While ensuring safety may sit at the top of the list of priorities, maximising the energy efficiency of these plant rooms isn’t far behind. The NHS is responsible for around 4-5% of the UK’s total carbon emissions, with the NHS in England contributing to 40% of the public sector’s total emissions. If the NHS is to reach its ambitious target of becoming Net Zero by 2045, it’s crucial that these figures are reduced. Many hospitals are already making
inroads in order to future-proof the sustainability of their operations. With some relying on the consistency of over 50 plant rooms to transport a significant quantity of water throughout a single building, the challenge of correctly specifying and maintaining pumps in the healthcare setting often requires a collective effort – but it is possible. Given that they are at the nucleus of
Many hospitals are already making inroads in order to future-proof the sustainability of their operations.
any hospital, it is vital that plant rooms receive regular, specialist monitoring for accurate and efficient operation. Industry professionals will understand that individual pumps have various levels of ‘health’, and that this ‘health’ will deteriorate over time. While the responsibility of monitoring the condition of pumps in a plant room tends to fall to Estates and Facilities personnel, it is often the case that, due to their busy workload, individual pumps can be overlooked. With EFM personnel increasingly
moving between healthcare settings, there is the risk that Estates managers may be unaware of the equipment that resides within a specific plant room, and may not have an up-to-date asset list for the room. As a result, such personnel may also not know when specific equipment was installed, who installed it, and when it needs to be serviced or replaced. Since Estates managers typically need
to spread their expertise across a wide range of disciplines, many do not have sufficient specialist knowledge on pumps. While this is understandable, it is crucial that specialists from the pump industry are enlisted to provide clear maintenance schedules within healthcare settings.
Difficult access Navigating plant rooms is tough – not only due to knowledge gaps. but also because these areas are often extremely tricky to access. Some plant rooms may
be located on top of hospitals, or hidden away in near-inaccessible locations, creating a logistical challenge for auditing and replacing pumps. Careful planning, consideration, and often complex procedures, are needed for demounting, removing, and installing, new pumps in such areas, especially if they are heavy and hard to carry. Suppliers like Wilo offer a solution to these challenges, providing expertise in consolidating existing assets, creating comprehensive asset lists, and deploying effective planned preventative maintenance (PPM) solutions. A straightforward yet effective PPM schedule is the traffic light system, which ranks equipment from red to green. Simply put, equipment ranked ‘red’ requires urgent attention, ‘amber’ may need attention soon, and ‘green’ equipment is in good health. Wilo has adopted these schedules to assist with arranging maintenance routines and keeping on top of documentation, in turn reducing the potential of any sudden and unexpected downtime. Remote monitoring, preventative maintenance, and service agreements can also be arranged, removing the sole onus on Estates managers to remain on top of this. It’s important that any supplier
understands that plant rooms are, in a plethora of ways, delicate areas. Any third-party staff should undertake the correct training and receive certification
April 2024 Health Estate Journal 53
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