February 2008

Welconstruct to provide clean bill of health for NHS Trust

Left to Rright Ken Carrington, Barry Redford and Kevin Hill

Following completion of the £3.5m Synergy supercentre in Manchester last winter, sterile service fit out specialist Welconstruct has revealed it is set to embark on a new major project that will deliver a £3.7m state of the art sterile services centre to two major hospital sites in Berkshire.

Here Health Estate Journal examines details of the project that will enable Heatherwood Hospital, Ascot and Wexham Park Hospital in Slough to benefit from the new unit, to be managed by the Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospitals (HWPH) NHS Foundation Trust provides hospital services services and over 550 beds to a 400,000 population across East Berkshire and South Buckinghamshire.

The nine month refurbishment and fit out programme started in January 2008 with the unit scheduled to begin operating in October 2008, employing a total of 30 staff.

The new facility will incorporate additional space made redundant by previous theatre upgrades with the current sterile services unit, to create a state of the art sterile services centre that will be responsible for cleaning and sterilising all the re-usable instruments and equipment used in the operating departments, wards, clinics and departments of the Trust’s two main sites.

It will enable Wexham Park and Heatherwood Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to achieve compliance with the EU Sterile Services Medical Devices Directive. This in turn will enable the Trust to market a sterile service for external customers.

With the outcome of a scheme of such importance in mind, Tony Downey, HWPH Head of Estates Capital Projects, together with Estates Design and Technical Services (EDTS), the design and project administrators on the scheme, followed a strict tender process.

Welconstruct competed against five other companies to win the contract. Following a six week process, Welconstruct were given the official green light and presented with the design and technical specification and subsequently put together a phased programme of works that was fully conducive to a working hospital environment.

Kevin Hill is sales manager for the health and sterile services division at Welconstruct: He said: “There were two major considerations we had to consider when implementing this project. The first was the fact that the hospital would be fully operational throughout the transformation. It was of paramount importance that we maintain the easy operational access and total comfort of the staff, the visitors and of course the patients throughout.

“We implemented a phased plan of works to help meet this need as well as provided sensitive solutions to a number of potential privacy issues. This includes installing special screening panels alongside the ward windows so that patients can see out but we can’t see in, providing maximum privacy and dignity - something highly valued in this situation.”

The second was to ensure that we remained within the tight budgetary restrictions whilst adhering to the similarly restricted timescales. Each sequence of the phased work has to happen at the projected timescales to ensure an efficient and prompt delivery. Welconstruct is well versed in both disciplines within the sterile services sector and displayed this when talking to bothi EDTS and The Trust. They know that they are in a safe and very steady pair of hands and we will not let them down.

As a specialist contractor in on-site and super centre facilities, Welconstruct will provide utilities such as purified water, gas and medical air at Wexham Park as well as various M&E services. The team will also co-ordinate the work of all contractors and suppliers on site as well as take into account the strict preservation orders placed on a number of large trees on the site.

All those with experience of working on sites with preservations orders in situ will be aware of the potential difficulties this type of restriction can present and this site is no different. Of course Welconstruct has a total appreciation for the protection of such landscaping and has expertise in overcoming such issues.

The facility being altered is a traditional 1960’s concrete framed building incorporating an in-situ concrete roof at varying levels and existing in-situ floors. A basement extends under the majority of the former theatre areas.

Ken Carrington, bid manager for Welconstruct comments: “One of the most important things we had to focus on when bidding for this project was the health and safety aspect of the scheme. This site is located in the centre of the ground floor of Wexham Park Hospital and includes the existing Central Sterile Services Department, redundant former theatres and part of the existing Cardiac Unit and Intensive Therapy Unit. All will be impacted by the transformation of facilities.

Health and safety is obviously paramount on any site in today’s marketplace but needed to be more strongly co-ordinated on a site of such sensitivity. Mechanical services need to be disconnected in a common plant room whilst maintaining live services to the operational theatres within the building and we are working closely with all service suppliers to ensure that there is no impact on the site.

“Dust is an obvious major hazard. It is imperative to ensure that the dust created from the demolition works is contained within the working area and not allowed to contaminate other sterile parts of the building. We have also got to keep a temporary sterile service unit operational until such time as we have commissioned the new system to take its place. We will obviously be co-ordinating the live services to ensure continuity at its most professional.”

There are three phases to this project. The first phase will be to reconfigure the currently operational visitors Intensive Therapy Unit (ITU) and build a temporary on site facility for visitors use. Patients will be relocated whilst the former area is incorporated into the envelope of the construction programme and form part of the new site.

The major demolition of the existing redundant theatres will form phase two of the scheme. This is the most significant and strategic stage of the project.

There are two sterile service facilities that currently run in parallel to each other. The TSSU (theatre sterile services unit) and the CSSD (central sterile services department). The difference between the two is that the CSSD is the central unit that works for all wards and units all over the hospital. The TSSU is specifically for the adjacent theatres.

Welconstruct will close down the current CSSD and transfer these services to the TSSU. During a 16 week programme, the CSSD will be demolished and absorbed and reconfigured into the new unit.

Every item that passes through the unit will be washed, checked, packed and sterilised. A labeling system will provide the date of sterilisation and autoclave and cycle numbers. All of the sterilised items will then be distributed back to the correct location ready for use. In total, the Wexham Park facility will deal with approximately 96,000 DIN baskets per annum.

Full traceability is required on every stage of the work carried out in Sterile Services. At any point in time the Trust will know where each theatre tray is. The service is audited at regular intervals to ensure high standards and complete traceability are maintained.

Commenting on behalf of the Trust, Jonathan Pearce, Director of Infrastructure said: “This new unit means we will have fully compliant sterile services facilities. With such a strong track record on similar projects, we were confident in appointing Welconstruct and look forward to the creation of this new facility at Wexham Park.”

Barry Redford, general manager of Welconstruct and a process engineer specialist comments: “ As specialists in on-site and super centre facilities we are now recognised as a leading decontamination solutions provider in the design, construction and delivery of sterile service facilities, both within and outside hospitals.

“We have a core team of sterile services specialist staff that have been with us for a number of years. We have also recently recruited additional staff to meet existing and potential projects, boosting our expertise to an all time high in doing so. In all, we have a dedicated team of eight to focus on the needs of this highly active sector which shows no signs of slowing down in its pace.”

Welconstruct supplies a full turnkey service including process integration; full utilities work and supporting infrastructure; engineering services, equipment specification, installation & commissioning and compliance with relevant standards.

Mr Redford added. “We ensure that we are fully up to speed in terms of pending and new legislation, as well as the impact that new laws are making on our clients. The skill set of our strategic team works well. Consisting of process engineers and design and health and safety professionals we all have a role to play and merge well to deliver good results.”

Welconstruct has been delivering sterile service facilities to both the public and private sector for over ten years. The firm provides workspace, supply chain and environmental solutions from concept to completion.

The most recent project completed is a £3.5m “design and build” facility for Synergy Healthcare plc at the company’s first multi million pound healthcare decontamination supercentre in Manchester.

The Centre will provide combined decontamination and sterilisation services for three NHS Trusts and one NHS Foundation Trust in the locality - University Hospital of South Manchester NHS Foundation Trust, North Cheshire Hospitals NHS Trust, Christie Hospital NHS Trust and Trafford Healthcare NHS Trust.

Operated by Synergy Healthcare plc, the UK’s largest provider of decontamination and sterilisation services for hospitals and PCTs, the service provides for the collection of surgical instruments from five hospitals to its site in Wythenshawe. The equipment is then washed, checked, packed, sterilised, and delivered back to the hospitals.

The result of the nine month project has been the transformation of a former industrial shed into a state of the art 18,000 sq ft sterile services supercentre that will process millions of instruments each year.

Kevin Hill, sector manager, Welconstruct says, “Our scope of work at Synergy involved the construction of operational areas, cleanrooms and mezzanine floors, as well as the installation of major plant and process equipment to provide this service.”

He continues, “There was also a heavy bias to utilities - bringing in new electrical, water and gas connections into the building, as well as providing all the M&E works to operate the equipment.”

Previous Welconstruct projects include schemes for the Wolverhampton NHS Trust and the Homerton NHS Trust in London, and a £1.5m sterile services unit at the NHS Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre in Oxford.