FAST-TRACK CONSTRUCTION
No compromise in quality While speed of construction is a key selling point for MTX, David Hartley stressed that this did not mean any compromise in quality. He said: “We are providing extremely high quality medium to long-term buildings, the latter with a 60-year design life, which is comparable to a traditional build. They often have concrete floors, and you can have whatever cladding you want; if you want it to look like The Shard, it can do!” MTX’s varied portfolio of healthcare projects in the past 10-15 years has seen it build anything from operating theatre extensions to wards, to new intensive treatment units (ITUs). David Hartley said: “We get involved in projects with a high level of electrical and mechanical installation and supporting infrastructure. In healthcare this could be anything from a ward to a theatre, to a new Accident & Emergency facility, an endoscopy unit, a critical care facility, and even a mortuary; anything where we can add value. We work with preferred design consultants – such as architects, MEP engineers, and structural engineers, and have built up a synergy with those regular partners. Our own site teams pretty well always install the mechanical and electrical services.”
Scientific research facility I asked David Hartley about any particularly prominent current projects. He said: “We have just completed a new R&D facility for a large scientific research company in Wythenshawe in south Manchester, with the facility largely comprising cleanroom laboratories for the testing of new drugs; a bit of a departure from our more usual healthcare work, but an area we were keen to get more involved in.” On the more ‘mainstream’ healthcare and wider front, MTX is working on a new operating theatre for a private healthcare provider in Salford, due for completion imminently; on pre-construction activities for twin operating theatres at Trafford General Hospital for the NHS, and on the pre-construction services for several new classrooms in Telford.
Impact of COVID-19
I wondered to what extent MTX had been impacted by the coronavirus outbreak. David Hartley said: “When the lockdown was first imposed, and the Government talked about the type of restrictions that would be introduced, it was very concerning for a business like ours with activities away from the office. On the instruction of all of our clients, however, all or our sites remain operational, albeit that we have adopted the guidance and standards the Government has asked all construction companies to implement. For example all of our operatives must remain 2 m apart while on site, all welfare facilities on our sites – such as canteens –
66 Health Estate Journal July 2020
A new 28-bed ward at New Cross Hospital in Wolverhampton.
are closed, and we have asked all staff to travel in, and eat their lunches in, separate vehicles, and to stay away from the hospital environment in terms of entering canteens or onsite shops. Three months in now, and it is working really well. Equally, given the fact that a number of non-healthcare construction sites countrywide have shut down, we were being inundated with construction personnel keen to work for us, to ultimately support the NHS.”
Working ‘almost 24/7’
I asked David Hartley whether MTX had been involved in any of the Nightingale or other ‘emergency’ hospitals built nationally in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. He said: “Not to date, but we are in the process of
delivering 400 beds nationally across England, in terms of new ward buildings, and have been asked to expedite work on these. On a number of our sites, we are actually double-shifting, pretty much working ‘24/7’, both to speed up delivery of the projects, but also to ensure good separation of the workforce. Of course if we have 100 people on site at any one time, we will split that.”
HTM and HBN-compliant David Hartley emphasised that the healthcare buildings MTX produces are ‘wholly Health Technical Memorandum and Health Building Note-compliant’, for instance with medical gases that comply, bed spaces at the correct distance apart, ventilation designed to afford the correct number of air changes per hour for specific patient volumes, and handwashing facilities, including taps and washbasins, to minimise infection risk. He said: “My hope for the future is that one upshot of the coronavirus outbreak is that NHS managers and the Department of Health & Social Care acknowledge that the service didn’t have enough beds available to cater for such an outbreak, and that in the future, we need, on occasions, to be making the correct provision for permanent solutions should such a scenario reoccur.”
MTX Contracts MD, David Hartley: “We can generally complete the build, including overseeing and installing all M&E services, in about half the time of a traditional build.”
Building further capacity I asked how this could best be achieved. He said: “We all know the NHS is overstretched, but you could look at creating extra beds to better address existing demand, and in the event of a further outbreak, the hospitals then have to do nothing other than cancel routine surgery. You then have the capacity in the existing infrastructure to support such a pandemic, whereas the NHS was so constrained on bed space, that it had to go and build the emergency hospitals.”
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