STERILE SERVICES
Waterpurification: Anewbeginning
The water quality demanded by the HTM standards is ever more demanding and staff at Southampton General Hospital decided it was time to replace their aging water treatment systems. Bradley Unwin, MIDSc EngTech, business development manager at water treatment specialist Lubron Water, explains how this was achieved.
University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust is a centre for teaching and research in association with the University of Southampton and partners including the Medical Research Council and Wellcome Trust. The Trust provides services to some 1.9 million people living in Southampton and south Hampshire, plus specialist services such as neurosciences, cardiac services and children’s intensive care to more than 3.7 m people in central southern England and the Channel Islands. Southampton General Hospital is the
Trust’s largest location, with a great number
of specialist services based here, ranging from neurosciences and oncology to pathology and cardiology. As a centre of clinical and academic excellence, this is where new treatments are being discovered, new healthcare professionals are being trained and cutting edge developments are being put into practice. Emergency and critical care is provided in the hospital’s special intensive care units, operating theatres, acute medicine unit and emergency department (A&E), as well as the dedicated eye casualty. Southampton General also hosts outpatient clinics, diagnostic and
treatment work, surgery, research, education and training, as well as providing day beds and longer stay wards for hundreds of patients. Two of the most critical areas for the hospital are the Endoscopy Unit and the Sterile Services Department both of which were served by water purification systems that were nearing the end of their lives.
Endoscopy Unit
Many of the procedures carried out at Southampton General involve endoscopy, and the hospital’s busy Endoscopy Unit has a number of Getinge ED-FLOW automated endoscope reprocessors. The systems require water for wash and final rinse which has to meet the requirements of HTM 01-06 (see table).
Two of the most critical areas for the hospital are the Endoscopy Unit and the Sterile Services Department both of which were served by water purification systems that were nearing the end of their lives.
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The existing water treatment system was a chemically sanitised plant, and Southampton General’s decontamination manager, Jean Hedges, was keen that the replacement should use heat sanitisation. Glen Campbell, the Trust’s project manager responsible for the replacement plant, explained: “We talked with Lubron Water when we first began specifying the Reverse Osmosis (RO) plant for the Endoscopy Unit and wound up working right the way through to installation and delivery. “Installation was quite tricky because there was limited space in the plant room, so it was very much a bespoke engineered solution.” Lubron Water’s new 600 litres per hour plant consists of a backwashable activated carbon filter to remove residual chlorine from the mains water supply, followed by duplex water softeners to prevent scaling in the downstream duplex RO systems. These are Osmostar units, each of which is capable of producing the full flow of 600 l/h but can, if demand is at a peak, be operated together to produce up to 1200 l/h of compliant water. The Osmostar permeate is delivered into a 500 litre stainless steel storage tank from which it is pumped to points of use via two
JUNE 2018
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