1. Home
2. Projects
3. Acute Health
4. Fire and Laundry Installations - NHS

Project overview

Organisation: NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde
Facility:  Hillington
Project: Lighting, Fire Sprinkler System Installation & Laundry Distribution Design & Installation
Value: £1 million
Timescale: 2007 – 2008

Project specifics:

• Design of a new compliant sprinkler system
• Improvement of lighting to complete area
• Improve laundry distribution control by installing computerised system
• 24 hour operation – so live environment
• Dust prevention to be managed

Fire and Laundry Installations - NHS

The developed project scope was to design install a new compliant sprinkler system within this large facility, to install improved lighting to complete area. The building which holds the laundry is an extremely large factory type building which holds large machinery to cater for all the laundry demands of all the NHS locations within Greater Glasgow & Clyde, which you can understand is an enormous responsibility. The additional remit was to improve their laundry distribution control to make it more efficient and to reduce revenue loss, purely by introducing a computerised monitoring system, which tracked laundry trollies to and from the laundry facility to and from each location – Not an easy task.

The project lasted over a year in total and all installations came with risk. To ensure that the facility which is a 24 hour operation unit functioned normally without interruption we had to erect an enormous scaffold canopy over all of the machines and workforce whilst they were still working. Dust prevention was an issue we had to overcome by using only new scaffold boards, vacuumed regularly before they were put in place and whilst the installation was taking active. This canopy allowed the specialist lighting contractor and the specialist sprinkler installer to work safely and efficiently.

• Health & Safety risks were high, but managed successfully.
• Infection control risks were present, but overcome
• Traffic and personnel control was meticulously handled to ensure operational matters were not compromised.
• Maintaining adequate lighting had complications, but resolved.
• Union negotiations were demanding ,but transformed to be productive.

The laundry distribution enhancement was not a simple one. In depth discussions were held with the laundry manager at Hillington and with facilities managers located in all the main hospitals and clinics within the region along with union representatives. These discussions were imperative to ensure success.

The main difficulties, which were high - lighted by members and were overcome:

• Manual handling aspects.
• Cage design for easy access.
• Cage design for durability.
• Cage design for easy mobilisation within hospital locations.
• Cage handle design.
• Transport design and control (Trucks were not similar for loading and unloading).
• Security Control of Trollies and monitoring.
• Software for control of trollies within sector.
• Training of operatives and staff.

This project was a complete success only because we immersed ourselves in the activities and methods already in place and conducted the overall project with clear communication between stakeholders, design team and contractor concerns. Risk analysis strategy meetings were frequent and although problematic at times were productive without any major issues causing concern. Another job well done.

Total value of Project £1 Million