STERILE SERVICES FACILITIES
Temporary SSD units more than prove their worth
An ongoing SSD centralisation project nearing completion at the Royal United Hospital in Bath necessitated the installation of a temporary sterile services facility on the site. The two new Portakabin buildings – supplied via Sterile Service Developments, and the subject of a challenging installation – have not only enabled the busy department to carry on working, but also to process an increased workload. HEJ reports.
In its six months of operation, a temporary sterile services facility supplied by SSD to Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust has enabled the busy department to continue working, processing an increased workload, while achieving a KPI on breakdown callouts of just six hours and three minutes. Like many other hospitals, the refurbishment of sterile services at Bath had been postponed on a number of occasions while patient-facing schemes were given priority. This led to an increasing number of issues and cancellations as the equipment reached the end of its working life.
Soby Joseph, the Trust’s Sterile Services and Decontamination manager, explained: “The ongoing SSD centralisation project, which is now nearing completion, sees both endoscopy and instrument reprocessing located in one facility.” Locating a temporary facility to reprocess the hospital’s flexible endoscopes was relatively straightforward. However, solving the instrument reprocessing conundrum proved to be a completely different matter. “We considered several options; going elsewhere for reprocessing, phasing the refurbishment work, or locating a temporary facility,” said Soby Joseph. Going offsite and using other hospitals’ facilities posed many issues: such as the logistics of time, the number of instruments being offsite, and the role of the decontamination staff during that period. The option of phasing what would be a major project while the department continued partial operation was something which the Decontamination and Capital Project teams felt was too high a risk. The decision was therefore made to source a temporary facility. After asking other hospitals, The Institute of Decontamination Sciences (IDSc), and equipment manufacturers, the
Craning the Portakabin buildings into position prior to equipment installation
only temporary solution which appeared to be available at the time was from a supplier in Belgium. However, at every stage of the negotiations there appeared to be issues with availability and what needed to be done.
A “lucky break”
“We struck lucky in a phone call to Olympus, who suggested we speak to Garth Rowbottom,” said Lee Williams, the Trust’s Technical Projects manager. Garth, of SSD, has many years of experience in decontamination, and had already drawn up plans for a temporary SSD facility. “We were right up against it,” explained Lee Williams. “The clock was ticking. We had a programme of what was happening for sterile services. Garth came up with an idea of how we could do it. We worked with him through a number of phases to make the unit work. We always knew where it would be located - close to sterile
This article, entitled, ‘Temporary SSD unit achieves the ‘impossible’, first appeared in the September 2019 issue of HEJ’s sister magazine, The Clinical Services Journal. HEJ thanks the magazine’s editor for allowing its reproduction here in slightly edited form.
services. The site presented its own issues: a pathway, bridge, fire regulations, a wall - all impinged on the size of the unit.”
Taking up the story, David Lockyer, deputy Decontamination manager, said: “The Trust supplied a specification to Garth, not for the equipment, just the throughput and facilities required. At the time we had four washer-disinfectors in the department, but one had broken down, so we were using three machines all the time. We decided that we definitely needed three for the temporary facility. It was up to SSD to select the manufacturer. We also needed a dedicated sink for manual washing, a Class 8 cleanroom for instrument packing, and a despatch area. “The initial plan was to have the temporary unit for eight weeks. We extended this to three months when speaking to Garth, and eventually to the end of June, to allow for completion of the centralised endoscope reprocessing and sterile services facility. The temporary unit was installed, and commissioning finalised, towards the end of December 2018, going live in January 2019.”
October 2019 Health Estate Journal 121
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