Project Overview
Barts Health NHS Trust is an NHS trust which operates five hospitals throughout the City of London and East London. It provides district general hospital services for the London Boroughs of Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest and Newham, and also provides specialist services to a wider region.
The site at Newham hospital is undertaking a process of capital investment and development. A newly employed electrical site manager identified a number of inconsistencies with the existing record information. This was highlighted at board level as a significant risk to capital development. The Estates team were tasked with preparing a formal assessment of the electrical infrastructure and development of a strategic plan to suit the business needs.
Project Brief
Due to E-Sine Limited’s comprehensive knowledge of Hospital environments and detailed understanding of the Health Technical Memorandums (HTM’s), the Estates Manager engaged E-Sine Limited to undertake a site wide assessment of the main electrical infrastructure and to prepare strategic masterplan which would allow stakeholders to understand the current challenges in terms of compliance and capacity and to provide a forward plan to enable the business to finance and develop the site inline with their capital development programme.
Our Brief
Our brief was to survey the existing services in detail and with respect to compliance with the HTM’s and produce formal reporting documentation on the condition with recommendations for remedial works for upgrading or modifying the existing electrical Services The report and associated findings were presented in a risk format in line with the NHS standard risk assessment for ease of interpretation. This approach would offer the Trust team clear understanding of the risk level for all existing systems and future ambitions, which could then be transferred to internal risk registers.
Specific Design & Project Requirements
As part of our surveys various intrusive investigations were required, using specialist equipment we were able to provide a detailed understanding of the existing infrastructure, coupled with the future for the hospital we were able to provide a holistic view of its current and future demands.
To attain the necessary electrical characteristics and loadings required for production of the board level reporting, E-Sine Limited undertook a detailed site assessment incorporating a number of processes including a detailed load assessment using portable power analysers, thermographic analysis of primary electrical infrastructure and a point to point validation of the existing record drawings. The HTM’s were referenced where non-compliances were identified.
Added Value to the Project
Our investigation highlighted that the hospital was operating at their maximum available utility capacity allocation. This enabled the estates and capital development team to postpone immediate plans retain a safe operating margin to the site.
E-Sine Limited have engaged with the network electricity company to commence the application process to increase the capacity to the site to allow for the short – medium term development plans in order to avoid costly penalties incurred from development projects currently underway.
Should the trust have commenced their plans without engaging E-Sine it is likely the site would have experienced significant power failure and loss of business services.
E-sine Limited expect to be engaged to undertake, design and manage certain elements of the electrical upgrade process on site.
