WATER HYGIENE AND SAFETY Estates maintenance manager’s recommendation
“At Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust we are constantly striving to achieve value through technology engineering,” explains the Trust’s Estates Maintenance manager, Paul Braddock. “This is through a combination of existing technologies such as BMS systems, and new technology such as Link Thru TMU. New technology can help to provide vital information at a fraction of the cost of existing hard-wired systems.
“We had a problem faced by many other Trusts in providing assurance of water system compliance to HTM 04-01. We needed to complete daily and weekly monitoring of incoming, stored, and supply water temperatures from our bulk storage tanks to point of use. “The hospital sits on a 45-acre site, and comprises estate dating from 1750 to 2018; it is thus technically challenging in terms of the distribution network, with 22 cold water storage tanks. We have limited labour resource to provide assurance of testing, so the LinkThru TMU was immediately of interest. It was promoted to us for sentinel monitoring,
temperatures in pipework systems, which is critical to risk assessments. Each connected ‘black box’
temperature monitoring unit is designed to be retrofittable, and to fit onto washbasin pipework, any pipe with an access point, behind a panel, under a sink, on a sluice, or by a boiler, and is powered by a lithium metal cell battery with a 3-5 year lifespan.
The unit takes a reading every 10 seconds, and then sends temperature and flow event data to ‘the cloud’ on an hourly basis. Recorded data includes maximum, minimum, and average temperatures. The sensor also records any flow events, such as taps being turned on. The data readings are analysed by the device’s inbuilt software, batched, and sent back up to the ‘cloud’, and then on to the user interface, which might be a phone, tablet, or PC. The system currently uses the Sigfox network, a long range, low-power, low-bandwidth wireless technology which is advantageous because it employs standalone radio signalling with no disruption to an organisation’s LAN of Wi-Fi.
but we quickly realised that this could be an answer to the water temperature problem. Working with Cistermiser, we used the LinkThru TMU system to monitor our tanks, and were able to trend our water usage versus storage temperatures over 24 hours with full history. We soon discovered overstorage and temperature issues, and are in the process of adjusting our stored capacity to achieve HTM 04 compliance.
“In terms of installation, the process was simple, and Cistermiser provided full training to our engineers to enable them to understand and install the technology in-house. This makes it expandable as we progress along our journey with the company. Our IT department has been fully supportive of the scheme, as it is a standalone system using SigFox technology, so it does not sit on, or impact, the Trust’s IT systems. I would have no hesitation in recommending this product, and would encourage other engineering managers to adopt this new technology to aid compliance assurance.”
LinkThru TMUs use the Sigfox wireless radio network to transmit data to a secure cloud-based portal, which can be viewed on a PC, laptop, tablet, or mobile phone.
Knowledge and control ‘at your fingertips’
In developing the perfect marriage of cloud-based data storage and analysis technology to robust, specialist hardware for remote sensing and monitoring of water temperatures and outlet usage, we’ve tried to counter each of the challenges that currently face healthcare
estates teams, to ease the burden on time and labour, and to eliminate the potential for human error. However, it’s the power of the data – the knowledge part of the solution – where the system truly comes into its own. Legislative requirements are of course a primary concern; in developing the system we continually referred to HTM guidelines, for instance, in setting the software’s recommended default temperature ranges for outlet types. HTM and HSE L8 ACoP guidance also emphasises the need to ensure that water doesn’t stagnate, and of accurate record-keeping; LinkThru users have peace of mind that they’re monitoring and recording what they need to in order to best protect against the threat of Legionella. However, the system goes way beyond this, to offer previously inaccessible information in real time, and for those who want to really maximise use of the data, reports can be set up to indicate how water is (or isn’t) being used in specific rooms or wards. Extrapolating this one step further means an estates manager or healthcare engineer can profile user behaviour and deploy optimal
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62 Health Estate Journal August 2019
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