ELECTRICAL DISTRIBUTION
‘Plug and play’ benefits of powertrack busbar systems
Paul Allen from CMD, the specialist in underfloor power distribution systems, discusses the use of busbar powertrack in a Nightingale field hospital, and highlights the lessons that can be learned about the benefits of this ‘plug and play’ approach to power distribution networks for both future hospital development and emergency response.
It has been a year and half of challenges and achievements for healthcare estates and facilities professionals. Faced with capacity and infection control issues, and the need to respond quickly to an evolving situation, there has been both a steep learning curve, and a need for creative thinking and agile responses. With the vaccination programme now well advanced, and the ‘R’ number finally reducing, there is hope that we may finally be on a path to tackle the COVID-19 virus and take pressure off the NHS. That includes taking pressure off healthcare estates; hospitals may have always been designed with flexibility built in, but that principle has been tested like never before over the past year. As we begin to look forward to transitioning to ‘normal’, there will be opportunities to consider what has been learned from the pandemic in terms of hospital specification and design, for existing hospital assets, new-build projects, and the redeployment of non- hospital assets as field hospitals.
Considering flexible approaches One aspect of this learning process is the need to consider flexible approaches to power distribution networks in hospital settings. While hospitals are heavily serviced buildings, repurposing a space often involves disruptive refurbishment works that can leave a location out of action for weeks. By building greater flexibility into power distribution networks at installation, those necessary changes can become much simpler and faster, reducing disruption, and creating more opportunities to reassign spaces. The use of powertrack busbar systems has been part of the rapid roll-out of the Nightingale field hospitals, so it may be time to consider how the lessons learned from those facilities can be applied across healthcare estates.
A flexible solution
The available electrical infrastructure was one of the key elements influencing the selection of locations for Nightingale field hospitals, because the existing buildings
52 Health Estate Journal October 2021
CMD says that the ‘plug and play’ nature of busbar powertrack systems makes them ‘suitable for rapid installation in patient modules at scale’.
were required to have the potential to adapt a hospital layout quickly on a temporary basis. This made conference centres and event venues an obvious solution, because they already contain flexible services designed to enable frequent reconfiguration. Opting for this kind of building was not possible in all locations, however, and it is from the buildings where new electrical infrastructure had to be installed quickly to create additional capacity that we can learn the most about potential future healthcare building services strategies. One of the smaller, local facilities chosen as a Nightingale Hospital was the Sir Tom Finney Sports Centre at the
University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) in Preston. The sports hall has a solid floor, and had insufficient electrical infrastructure for use as a hospital, so two new distribution boards were installed, along with a diesel generator to provide standby power in the event of an outage. The fit-out included installation of a timber floor above the existing floor, along with modular bays, which were fabricated off site to enable up to 120 patients to be treated if required.
‘Plug & play’ busbar system To aid rapid installation of the electrical distribution required for each bed bay, CMD’s 63A Betatrak busbar power track
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