ESTATE REDEVELOPMENT
by patients going and practising making a cup of tea, or cooking a hot meal. In the large first-floor gym area we can treat several patients simultaneously, and help develop strength and mobility, while the ADL bedroom enables us to test movements people would need to make every day, such as safely getting in and out of bed. There is a standard bath lower than you’d find in a hospital, selected deliberately so we can ascertain whether they can get in and out of such a bed safely on leaving the ward. Due to the ADL suite’s design, we can also turn it into an independent living flat, where someone could stay for 24 hours, and we can then can gauge whether the patient is actually fit to do so. We can also accommodate a patient’s relative overnight. It offers us so many options.”
Comparable facilities nationally? I wondered how many comparable rehabilitation facilities there were nationally. Maggie Stoppard said: “The nursing and rehabilitation principles here, and the ADL suite concept, are certainly not new – but most rehabilitation units aren’t purpose-built like this one, What’s so exciting here is that we’ve been able to take what we know works best in rehabilitation, and collaborate with the design team to get something purpose built – an opportunity you get very infrequently. Equally, the way the teams have collaborated, and the involvement of the clinical team at every step, are things I’ve never seen to the same degree.” The new West Wing connects to the existing community
Below: A Day Room.
Below right: There are 12 staff touchdown spaces per ward on both floors.
hospital at ground floor level via a link corridor, with the floor’s design consistent throughout to create a harmonious flow. Mark Maffey said: “Where once stood the Tannersbrook Ward, we now have the new West Wing, adjacent to Snowdon, another rehabilitation ward.” He admitted that this proximity had caused some concern: “We were asked how we would demolish the interconnected Tannersbrook Ward, and replace it with a three-storey extension just six feet from a neuro rehabilitation ward without any associated disruption. We knew the building work would impact principally the Snowdon Ward, the Vocational Rehabilitation Service, and the Catering building, and any other service that required a delivery. It was key to minimise disruption to critical services. Vital to this was the close relationship between Chris James (Capital Projects and Operational Maintenance) and I, since the work to deliver the new building, and then connect it up to the existing one, was inextricably linked. That we have completed such a fantastic facility is a product of partnering with an excellent
contractor with a positive approach. Brymor has a proven track record of live hospital work. From the outset, its team acknowledged that given that their task was to build a three-storey concrete frame within six feet of a live ward, it could only happen successfully with the correct, and a highly considerate, construction strategy.” Mark Maffey added: “We managed the construction
programme via weekly meetings with the contractor and the affected users – our technical stakeholders, and the clinical teams. In these non-contractual meetings we talked through the work that Brymor planned to do the following week, any impact on live services, and any input required from the hospital’s site teams. One thing nobody really sees is all the work that Chris and his Operational Estates team do to support capital projects when ‘in flight’. The West Wing is a large extension to the Western Community Hospital, and there comes a point when you must cut over the live services to feed the new building. Chris was responsible for maintaining the M&E services throughout the entire estate, keeping our resident patients safe, while ensuring the that new building received its vital infrastructure in line with the project’s tight programme. His careful choreography, fully in tune with the MEP sub- contractors, delivered this perfectly.” “For example,” Maggie Stoppard said, “we switched
water off, and Snowdon lost hot and cold water at one point, but it was planned, Chris managed the process, and deployed temporary sinks, with minimal impact. We were really concerned about the ongoing construction – especially given that patients on Snowdon have had brain injuries, and are sensitive to noise. However, we only stopped work once due to noise for 30 minutes in 100 weeks on site.”
Connecting the M&E services I asked Chris James about connecting all the M&E. He said: “We had to divert all the existing services to connect to the new West Wing, and facilitate the demolition of the existing Tannersbrook Wing, through which the main arteries ran. We worked to a careful roadmap to keep services ‘live’ while we diverted all the heating, domestic hot and cold water services, and internal and external drainage. We also diverted local heating and cooling, and air-conditioning systems, and re-located a live hub room. One major challenge was the electrics, because the team had to very substantially adapt the site infrastructure. “The site was historically fed from a low voltage supply, but as part of the scheme we strove to look to the future.
44 Health Estate Journal February 2025
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