MECHANICAL AND ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING
Dowds Group undertook the M&E installation on the new High Energy Proton Beam Cancer Therapy Centre at Thames Valley Science Park, Reading.
Complexities of healthcare projects While companies such as Dowds are fully aware of the pressures to deliver compliance and the highest possible standards in everything that they do, they are also increasingly being asked to deal with clinicians who know what they want medically, but have difficulties grasping some of the technical challenges. It is this backdrop that makes working in the healthcare sector so complex – in terms of ensuring that there are no
misunderstandings at the ‘front end’ of the contract. Clinicians clearly know how a hospital works and operates, but cannot have the same knowledge of how to deliver gas, air and water, CCTV, and other vital equipment and infrastructure where it is most needed. It is critical, because failure to understand these concepts could ultimately result in costly delays and changes. Once you understand such problems it is surely the job of companies like ours to demonstrate that we have fully understood the brief. The job of the clinician is to keep people alive and well. They, of course, want to know that what
The North Wing at the Altnagelvin Hospital near Londonderry was completed in 2020, with 144 beds delivered, along with M&E infrastructure and services.
we do works, and that we have fully understood the brief, and we, in turn, have to show them what we need to do to deliver exactly what is specified.
The brief ‘just the first stage’ In many ways the brief is only the first stage of the challenge. Delivering M&E involves making it fit within the constraints of the building, and that means working with architects and structural engineers to ensure that when the unit is finally ready to take patients and equipment, that everything will work in the way that it should.
Such a situation is magnified when working within a ‘live’ hospital such as the Queen Elizabeth in Woolwich, where contractors have to be able to work alongside staff and patients. Power and gas have to be isolated in key areas without disrupting emergency services, with M&E teams working to a different dynamic, liaising closely with clinicians on a day-to-day basis to deliver an ongoing programme while working in different parts of the hospital.
Importance of ‘empathy’
“What is equally important, and a quality and characteristic that we urge all of our staff to adopt, is empathy. We are working in hospitals, and this is real life that we are talking about. It means that teams have to be professional and discreet at all times, in keeping with a caring environment. While, unlike the clinicians, we do not deal directly with patients and relatives facing distress, we have to be aware that they are facing difficult and stressful situations. The challenges continue right up to handover and beyond for each project, with companies like Dowds offering the highest levels of training, scrutiny, and quality control. Medical staff in particular need to be made familiar with new operating systems and regimes, and what needs to happen should anything go wrong.
Dowds Group, working from its head office in County Antrim for more than 40 years, has an enviable reputation for delivering quality healthcare projects in Northern Ireland. This expertise has been transferred to London, where the
Dowds undertook the complex mechanical and electrical services installation for the new three-storey Rosie Perinatal Unit at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge
50 Health Estate Journal January 2022
The Omagh Hospital and Primary Care Complex, set on a brownfield site, and hosting a range of co-located services under one roof, is made up of six blocks.
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