VENTILATION
Major benefits from effective upgrades and ‘refurbs’
The Government’s high-profile plan to deliver 40 new hospitals by 2030, and push on into the future with a wider retrofit and upgrade programme for the whole healthcare estate, will only succeed if the building services sector plays a leading role, argues James Henley, Product Development manager at Daikin Applied UK, the specialist in energy-efficient AHU and chiller products.
The Minister in charge of the Government’s New Hospital Programme (Hospital 2.0) has stated that the £20 bn plan will only succeed if building services supply chains adopt greater product and design standardisation, fully embrace Modern Methods of Construction (MMC), and can carry out major upgrade and refurbishment projects at scale. Efficiency and productivity
improvements across the whole supply chain are crucial to the programme, which will not meet its targets without them, said Lord Markham CBE. “We need standardised designs using MMC to improve efficiency, and standardised components to manufacture at scale and get the speed we need,” he said. “These are not just buildings – they will need to be showcases for what the hospital of the future will look like.” He added that MEP (mechanical, electrical, and plumbing) would be crucial ‘for making sure these are fantastic places for patients’, and that the expertise of specialist contractors would be vital. He said that improving ventilation was a top priority – not just to mitigate the risk of infections, but also to speed up patient recovery and thus reduce waiting times.
Engineering at its heart It is not surprising that the Minister has put building engineering at the heart of his plans, because the built environment is the UK’s second highest carbon emitter behind road transport. It accounts for 17% of the UK’s total, and to keep the UK on track for Net Zero by 2050 the sector needs to reduce emissions by 43% (33 MtCO2
e) by the end of this decade. While much of this programme involves
new-build work, it is also substantially about refurbishing and retrofitting existing facilities. Lord Markham said the long- term goal was to overhaul the whole NHS estate, and most buildings, i.e. the existing ones, will be the main challenge for our sector when it comes to delivering Net Zero.
86 Health Estate Journal October 2023
Daikin says ‘one of the most underutilised steps’ NHS Trusts can take to help them reach demanding Net Zero targets, and ensure the most energy-efficient operation of their plant, is to get existing air-handling unit equipment refurbished.
If you are trying to overhaul one of the
UK’s largest property portfolios, you must put Net Zero at its heart, because that will drive wider performance improvements. However, we are currently well off track, according to the latest progress report from the Climate Change Committee
‘‘
(CCC). This statutory body, set up to advise the government under the Climate Change Act 2008, said that, although the government had set a target to reduce energy consumption in buildings by 15% by 2030, there were ‘no guidelines or mechanisms’ for delivering this aim. It also
We need standardised designs using MMC to improve efficiency, and standardised components to manufacture at scale and get the speed we need. These are not just buildings – they will need to be showcases for what the hospital of the future will look like
Portfolio Minister for the New Hospital Programme, Lord Markham
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124
