Refurbishment
Planning schemes to minimise disruption
Refurbishments are becoming increasingly common across the NHS, but planning and delivering construction projects in live medical environments with the minimum of disruption to patients, staff, and visitors, is no mean feat, as Richard Hall, a director at integrated property services and project delivery specialist, Styles&Wood, explains.
industry’s biggest customers. However, the nature of the projects happening in the healthcare sector is changing. What was once a thriving new-build
W
industry based substantially around PFI funding has fallen off drastically since the onset of the financial crisis, both as a result of cuts in capital expenditure, and
ith a property estate worth approximately £40 billion, the NHS is one of the construction
due to the Government’s overarching strategy of shifting the emphasis of care away from large hospital facilities towards a community-based model. However, at the same time, an ageing population means patient volumes continue to increase year-on-year. One of the effects of this combination of
difficult factors is significant growth in the need for projects to refurbish, upgrade, and increase the capacity of, older facilities, so
that they meet patient demands in terms of both quantity, and quality, of care. For those tasked with delivering these projects, there is a broad set of additional challenges that are not present either in new-build projects, or refurbishment of vacated premises. This is true of any project, but especially so in a live healthcare environment. Arguably foremost among these
concerns is ensuring the health and safety Two-phase project at Barnsley Hospital
Styles&Wood is currently delivering a £1.7 million upgrade to the Accident & Emergency and Physiotherapy facilities at Barnsley Hospital in South Yorkshire. The hospital, which has over 500 beds in total, was built in the 1970s, and serves a population of more than 250,000 people. Last year its Accident & Emergency department treated 78,000 people, and the hospital’s owners, Barnsley NHS Foundation Trust, identified the department as a facility that would benefit from modernisation. There are two distinct elements to
the project – the first being the creation of a new ‘observation ward’ and resuscitation room to sit adjacent to the Accident & Emergency department, and the second a full refurbishment of, and change of layout for, the hospital’s physiotherapy facility. The observation ward element of the project involves stripping out existing theatres and changing room spaces to install a brand new suite of four-bed wards, single en suite rooms, and back-room spaces, including a staff washroom, and a sluice room. The A&E ward itself will continue to
operate throughout the project, but the specific work site for the new elements is sealed off, but accessible full-time to the construction team. However, the project is complicated, as some of the space earmarked for refurbishment is required for use as a resuscitation room. To work around this, the project will
be completed in two phases. The first phase is to complete all areas of the refurbishment, except for the existing resuscitation room. The second phase includes temporary re-location of the facility into one of the newly created spaces while refurbishment of the room is carried out.
Electrical/data services A further complication is that a number of essential electrical and data services required by other parts of the hospital run through the site, along with heating and ventilation services, which also needed to be maintained. Demolition has to be carried out carefully in order to avoid interruption to these. The immediate proximity to the active
A&E department and resuscitation room means that maintaining low levels of
noise wherever possible is a priority. The second element of the project –
the refurbishment of the physiotherapy facility – is being undertaken while the department is ‘live’, so works have been scheduled outside of normal hours of operation – during evenings and weekends – with the space being restored to a standard suitable for patient use during the day. Although this side of the installation is more ‘basic’ than the work on the observation ward, in terms of the number of services that need to be installed – the space comprises office space, examination rooms, and toilets – the need to deliver the work around the day-to-day operations of the facility has required high levels of discipline from the team, in terms both of timing, and standards of cleanliness. Because of the highly sensitive nature
of the job, the delivery team has been hand-picked based on proven experience on similar jobs. For the most part, the team is the same as that which won the bronze Considerate Constructors’ award in 2012 for its work at the Chesterfield Royal Hospital (see overleaf).
Health Estate Journal September 2013
33
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