Patient safety
Strengthening safety in the MRI room
A new MRI and CT scanning unit at Winchester’s Royal Hampshire County Hospital, run by the Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, has been officially opened by the city’s MP, Steven Brine, having been completed in February by Brymor Contractors, under advice from TKL Architects, to replace a former imaging facility badly damaged by a fire in December 2011. As HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie, reports, the new building features a head and whole body HD imaging CT scanner from GE, and a 1.5 T Philips Ingenia MRI scanner, as well as Ferroguard ferromagnetic detection equipment from Metrasens designed to ‘screen’ individuals about to enter the MRI scanning room for ferrous objects.
local MP, Steven Brine, and the chair of the Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Elizabeth Padmore, on 14 June this year. The opening was attended both by many of the radiographers, radiologists, surgeons, nursing, and other clinical and administrative personnel who will use the facility, but also by Winchester’s Mayor and Mayoress, and by patients and other guests. One of the first personnel to be alerted
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to the fire in the former imaging suite on the afternoon of 9 December, 2011 – which was spotted by amaintenance engineer walking past the unit on his way home – was Dr Jeremy Hogg,medical director of the Foundation Trust’s Family and Clinical Support Services Division. He was in a meeting roomnear the MRI and CT scanning rooms when a colleague rushed in to tell himthat smoke was coming from
aving taken just to 10 months to complete, the new MRI and CT suite was officially opened by
the building’s roof. Dr Hogg had been one of the key personnel on the project to design and build the MRI and CT facility around a decade earlier, and, during the construction of its replacement, acted as the principal day-to-day Foundation Trust contact with themain and sub-contractors. Other key members of the project teambehind the impressive new building were Christine Saunders, clinical servicesmanager of the Radiography Department; lead radiographer, Steve Ross; the Foundation Trust’s estates director, Paul Bond, and consultant radiologist, Julian Elford.
Staff and patients full of praise Dr Hogg told me, when I spoke to him by telephone recently, that staff and patients alike are delighted with the new MRI/CT facility, which he describes as ‘light, airy, and welcoming’, with a design that helps ‘de-stress’ patients who, understandably, are often nervous on arriving for their scan. He said: “Both the external and interior
design of the new building are first-class; there is a light, airy, and spacious feel throughout, which is especially apparent in the scanning rooms, which are sufficiently large to prevent patients from feeling claustrophobic.” Among the elements that Dr Hogg feels
particularly contribute to the ‘patient-friendly feel’ are large photographic friezesmounted on the walls, withmany of the photographs, showing iconic local landscapes and buildings, such asWinchester Cathedral, having been taken by local people and staff as part of a photographic competition. The ceilings above the CT and MRI scanners, meanwhile, incorporate projected photographic images of sky and trees, ‘to bring the outside in’, while changeable coloured lighting, from the Philips Ambient range, features in the MRI scanning room. A number of the corridors were also designed as ‘light tunnels’, via the incorporation of large skylights in the ceilings.
The new MRI and CT scanning unit (left) at Winchester’s Royal Hampshire County Hospital (right).
Health Estate Journal September 2013
71
Courtesy of HHFT
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