FAST-TRACK PROJECTS
The surge hub taking shape on Car Park B at the Royal Preston Hospital site.
give us a wipeable clinical surface.” I asked about sourcing the required labour force in a such a short timeframe. Cliff Howell said: “IHP sourced a lot of labour, and we had the services and expertise of the sub-contractors. Fortunately, the whole project was characterised by excellent collaboration and an extremely responsive team. As a result, from taking the car park out of use, i.e. from the last car leaving it, to the surge hub being able to take patients, was only three weeks.” Cliff Howell here brought in Karen
Thompson to talk about some of the project’s commissioning and procurement aspects. She said: “We clearly had to work at pace. Luckily, I was working between Christmas and New Year, so I got the nod to start searching for things. All the departments pulled together; we had to pool our previous experience of what wards like this need. There was input and involvement from Estates, Medical Engineering, IT, and domestics – everybody had to have a say to ensure we got a good grounding for all the fixtures, fittings, and equipment we would need. We got the FF&E together, and collaborated with the Lancashire Procurement Cluster. We had regular meetings, so everybody had the same overview, and if anybody could help address a particular issue, they would. ESG and IHP provided the Group 1 items – the traditional construction elements, such as cubicle curtain tracks, sinks and taps, while I co-ordinated the supply of the
Group 2 items – such as dispensers, kitchen equipment, fridges, noticeboards, and clocks. I also managed the procurement of Group 3 ‘loose’ items, such as the beds and the furniture, and the Group 4 elements.”
A collaborative push Karen Thompson acknowledged that it was difficult, especially with the scarcity of materials needed to make some of the equipment at the time, to obtain some of the wide range of equipment and other fixtures and fittings required, but added that, ‘with everyone pulling together, the pressure on me was significantly reduced’. Shaun Ashworth interjected: “The other big challenge for Karen was delivery dates and storage.” The latter said: “Our Procurement Cluster – a collaborative between three Trusts based at the East Lancashire Hospital site at Blackburn – was extremely helpful throughout, leading the central procurement route, and lending us some valuable staff resource. We were constantly engaging with suppliers to ensure that they could meet their promised delivery dates. All our suppliers, including of some quite – at the time – limited medical equipment, such as monitors, resus trolleys, suction, and
defibrillators, did an amazing job – one in particular that was outstanding was Teal Furniture.” Karen Thompson admitted that when initially told of the timescales, some of the suppliers were ‘a little shocked’. “However,” she added, “many had heard about the surge hubs coming, and all did everything possible to facilitate the project’s smooth completion.”
An element of luck Collaboration was clearly key, but Cliff Howell said that when the team held a post-project ‘de-brief’ meeting with NHSE/I personnel, he and his colleagues admitted they had also had ‘quite a lot of luck along the way’. He said: “So, for example, we couldn’t procure a suitable Wi-Fi nurse call system anywhere in the time available, but were fortunate to get a call from one of Shaun’s contacts at a neighbouring Trust, which was storing equipment from another facility set up in a sports hall on the UCLan site in Preston, that had the type of system we needed.” Louise Testa, who regularly serves as the Trust’s Programme manager on capital development schemes, and fulfilled the same role on this project, said of her part: “I have my own company,
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June 2022 Health Estate Journal 47
Courtesy of Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
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