projects
in br ie f • New health centre for Hereford
Touchdown at hospital helipad
T
he first helicopter has landed on a new £500,000 helipad at Hull Royal Infirmary. A five-person crew from Lincs & Notts Air Ambulance was the first to fly in and step foot on the newly-completed helipad to the rear of the hospital. Hull University Teaching Hospitals
NHS Trust carried out the major construction project so that patients seriously injured in accidents across East and North Yorkshire and parts of Lincolnshire could be flown directly into the grounds of the hospital, which is the major trauma centre for the region. And the test landing was by pure coincidence as, following completion of the landing site, Lincs & Notts Air Ambulance had just flown a patient into the existing helipad on the opposite side of Argyle Street, and were awaiting a call to their next job. Intensive care consultant, Dr Tom Cowlam, the trust’s clinical lead for the trauma service, said: “The new helipad looks very impressive. The fact we were able to complete the first test landing so quickly after construction was completed was down to pure chance, but now that we’ve seen the first helicopter land, we’re looking forward to being able to complete all of the tests with our partners and bring the helipad into permanent use.” The helipad, situated behind Hull Royal Infirmary’s new £12m emergency department, has been funded entirely by the HELP Appeal, which is the only charity in the country dedicated to financing hospital helipads. Test flights will continue over the next few weeks until all 15 agencies which regularly fly patients into the hospital, including Yorkshire Air Ambulance, the Search & Rescue helicopter, and the Embrace children’s air ambulance, have
all completed at least one landing. Dr Cowlam said: “The new helipad will shorten the journey by 15 minutes and remove the need for patients to be transferred in a second ambulance to the emergency department.
“It will make the transfer quicker and
more seamless for the trauma patient. “When you have a really-poorly person, this might be the difference between life and death because this could be the time when they are having surgery or a massive blood transfusion to save them.”
The landing site measures 30m by 30m and took 900 tonnes of concrete to build. It was constructed by Unico Construction. An access road for fire engines and service vehicles has also been built alongside a second pedestrian route where patients will be carried out of the air ambulance and rushed into the emergency department.
And special double fences have been
erected to act as ‘baffles’ to reduce noise pollution; with the majority of the site l turfed with pinned grass covered with mesh overlay to act as a ‘soakaway’ to remove water from the helipad.
www.unico-uk.co.uk
Construction work has started on the new medical centre in Herefordshire. Being developed by Prime for NHS Herefordshire Clinical Commissioning Group; the centre in Station Approach, Hereford, is being built by Speller Metcalfe and was designed by One Creative Environments. It will house five GP surgeries and a range of community services. It is due to open next year and is being financed by both Prime and NHS England, which awarded the scheme £2.1m from its Estates, Technology and Transformation Fund (ETTF).
www.primeplc.com
www.oneltd.com
www.spellermetcalfe.com
• Boost for cancer care
AFL Architects has been appointed to support Rutherford Diagnostics as it embarks on a programme of healthcare development across the UK. The first of the facilities to be constructed is the five-storey Rutherford Diagnostics HQ in Liverpool. And future schemes will help to boost cancer diagnostic and treatment capability across the country. Dr Steven Powell, chief diagnostic officer at Rutherford Diagnostics, said: “There is a significant shortfall in diagnostic provision in the UK. By embarking on this project in partnership with AFL Architects, we will be, in part, addressing that imbalance. We look forward to our joint future in designing environments that lead to better health outcomes.”
www.afl-architects.com
www.therutherford.com
healthcaredm.co.uk 21
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