Dorset County Hospital Case Study

Introduction
Dorset County Hospital services Dorset and Somerset and brings all the local district general service under one hospital site. It also has links with five satellite units in five community hospitals which makes it a central hub for health services in the county.

The Challenge
To ensure the planned system amendments and plant replacement to go ahead, we had to conduct the ventilation hygiene works to make sure the ducting/plant could be safely removed

An additional problem that we faced on this site was that we had to work around a live ward situation without any disruption but making sure our typically high standards of works are increased due to the vulnerable nature of the patients.

The Solution
The works that needed to be carried out in various areas around the hospital were carefully coordinated with the project manager and site staff to ensure we minimised the disruption to the site. Although this did still require some adjustments part way through the job as our team had to switch to working during the night instead to ensure the site could continue running as smoothly as possible.

Despite this alteration, we were still able to complete the works to ensure the site was compliant with the TR-19 which is a BESA recommendation for internal cleanliness of ventilation systems. We also ensured the ductwork met the HTM-03-01 standard which is required for all NHS sites and lays out guidelines on specialised ventilation for healthcare buildings

Value Added
The first improvement we made to the site was installing additional access panels to ensure greater access around the ductwork to allow contractors to access a greater area of the ductwork.

We were then able to clean some of the areas that were previously inaccessible. This helps to maximise the air flow within the ductwork and reduce the risk of a fire spreading throughout the ductwork due if the dust, dirt, and other debris was to catch light.

To further prevent the spread of fire throughout the ductwork into other areas of the building, we also cleaned the fire dampers so they meet the required standards of operation and will deploy in the event of fire or smoke entering the ductwork should a fire break out.

Our site contact was so pleased with the works and the adaptability of our engineers that he sent us  a letter of commendation praising the work of our engineers. Take a look at the before and after images below. He also provided us with a testimonial that you can see on our testimonials page along with some of the others that we have