Surgical Theatre & Enhanced Mortuary Scheme at Darlington Hospital
Procured and delivered under the Procure 21+ framework this two-phase project delivered the facilities needed to allow Darlington Hospital to become a centre of excellence in key areas of surgery.
Development included a new build, three storey extension to the existing housing, enhanced mortuary facilities, six operating theatres, plant room and the refurbishment of five existing operating theatres and extensive recovery facilities and supporting accommodation.
Key details
Project name
Surgical Theatre & Enhanced Mortuary Scheme
Client
Darlington Memorial Hospital
Location
Darlington
Services provided
- Mechanical Engineering
- Electrical Engineering
Challenge
Our team had to deliver the scheme in a live, busy hospital environment, ensuring minimum disruption to the day to day running of acute services and continuity of patient care. The overriding requirement was to keep nine theatres operational at all times throughout the project.
Another challenge lay in trying to accommodate modern complex ventilation plant and equipment within plant rooms originally designed and built for much smaller plant in the 1970’s. We also had to establish 21st Century mechanical and electrical services within existing ceiling voids originally designed to accommodate much lesser service provision.
Solution
Our engineers developed designs in conjunction with the M&E services specialist contractor to include numerous offsite pre-fabrication elements, including:
- Prefabricated plant rooms for LV Switch room, Data hub and Uninterruptible Power Supply battery room. This meant the existing plantroom didn’t have to be extended saving time and reducing construction activity and health and safety risk
- Low temperature hot water and chilled water pump skids
- Domestic hot water production skids
- Low temperature hot water plate heat exchanger modules
- Plantroom pipework modules
- Air handling units were delivered to site assembled with controls and power wiring installed commissioned and tested off site to allow “Plug and Play”
These reduced onsite installation time, increased quality and reduced construction health & safety risks.
To ensure continuity of operation whilst maintaining the availability of a minimum of nine theatres at all times, detailed planning and phasing schedules as well as drawings were drawn up for the entire project. These highlighted areas of work, time and the sequence to be undertaken. These were shared with the project team to ensure they were aware and prepared.
Award recognition
The scheme was shortlisted in the Constructing Excellence in the North East awards 2019, in the Integration, Collaborative Working and Value categories.
Highly commended at the BBH awards as an outstanding example of P21+ at its very best. The team adopted a truly collaborative ethos to successfully deliver this complex and challenging project.
