Note that whereas HBN40 ‘Common Activity Spaces Vol:2 Treatment Areas’ (now superseded) set the height of a clinical basin at 860mm to the rim, HBN 00-03 ‘Clinical and Clinical Support Spaces’ now sets the height at 800mm.
Shortlisted for BBH 2009 - Washington Primary Care Centre
Washington Primary Care Centre is shortlisted in the Best Primary Care Design category: developed for Sunderland Teaching PCT with Laing O’Rourke, this superb building is certainly attracting attention and recently scooped the award for Best Healthcare Building at the Northern LABC awards.
To see the full shortlist for Building Better Healthcare 2009 clickhere.
Seaham Health Centre has received Planning Approval from County Durham.
Procured through LIFT with Accent and CP25 the new health centre will provide “state of the art” primary care in Seaham. It’s been designed as part of a new Public Realm for St John’s Square, which will include a new park, Library and office space. The project is due to start on site in early 2010.
Once again, P+HS have excelled themselves at the LABC Northern Region Building Excellence Awards. In a glittering ceremony, P+HS received two commendations for Eaglescliffe Health Centre (with Tolent Construction) and Wrekenton Health Centre (with Laing O’Rourke), and won the Best Healthcare Building overall for Washington Primary Care Centre (also with Laing O’Rourke). Washington will now go through to the National LABC Awards later in the year. Congratulations to all involved. The results were as follows:
Washington Primary Care Centre for Sunderland Teaching PCT- Best Healthcare Building - Overall Winner
Wrekenton Health Centre for Sunderland Teaching PCT - Commended
Eaglescliffe Health Centre for Abstract Integrated Healthcare - Commended
Photographs of the recently completed health centre at Wrekenton, Tyne & Wear.
The 1500sqm building has a prominent street frontage on one of the main routes into the town and contains accommodation for a local GP practice along with new pharmacy, dental, podiatry and minor ops facilities.
Client: Sunderland TPCT Contractor: Laing O’Rouke
Here’s a link to EcoSalon’s list of 17 green roofs from around the world.
Interesting to flick through for 5 minutes and don’t worry, there’s some more modern stuff than the house shown above in there too.
P+HS have recently submitted a planning application for a new single storey extension to the existing hospital. Accommodation consists of 11 new consultant rooms, physio treatment rooms and a new gym. A double height space from reception links the two wings, providing a more appealing waiting space for patients and visitors.
Materials consist of white render, white Lignacite blocks and horizontal timber cladding. From above, a sedum roof will help blend the building into the existing greenbelt landscape.
Graphics : Chris Lawes
It has been brought to our attention that taps installed in a medical centre recently has been refused sign-off due to the type of tap installed (not one of our projects I may add).
The tap installed was a Twyfords SF1015CP which appears to be specified for all projects. This is the wall mounted type that projects out of the IPS panel. The problem is the mixer valve being installed within the body of the tap, hence there is a section of exposed pipework that has a high surface temperature.
I have spoken to Twyfords who have confirmed they are aware of this and an alternative tap is due for dispatch early January 2009. It will appear the same tap, just a tweek on the internal set up.
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Copper surfaces can kill off MRSA
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MRSA infections could be reduced by using copper alloys for surfaces in hospitals, UK scientists believe. The University of Southampton team found the superbug was unable to survive on copper alloy surfaces for longer than 90 minutes. MRSA can live for up to three days on surfaces such as stainless steel, Dr Jonathan Noyce and colleagues found. They presented their findings at a recent meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in New Orleans. MRSA, or Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, is a growing problem for the NHS, with more than 7,000 cases occurring each year in England alone.
People who are ill and are vulnerable to infection are at greatest risk of MRSA and can die if they become infected. Scientists are continually looking for ways to fight the infection. It has been known for some time that heavy metals such as copper are antimicrobial. Other researchers have looked at whether different bacteria can survive on different metals, but nobody had looked at MRSA. Dr Noyce and Professor Bill Keevil compared the survival rates of MRSA on stainless steel, the most commonly used metal in hospitals, and on selected copper alloys. They found that at room temperature MRSA persisted for up to 72 hours on stainless steel, meaning it had the potential to spread to other surfaces it came into contact with. In comparison, yellow brass rendered the bacteria completely harmless after four and a half hours. Copper alloys were the best, destroying MRSA in as little as an hour and a half. Copper knobs Dr Noyce and colleagues believe switching hospital work surfaces and door handles from stainless steel to copper could help combat MRSA. Dr Noyce said: “MRSA infections in hospitals are pretty rife and out of control. The main mechanism of transfer of MRSA is though cross-contamination on work surfaces and contact surfaces such as door handles and push plates.
“If you changed some of these surfaces to copper-based alloys these bacteria would be dead in 90 minutes,” he said. But he said it would be relatively expensive and suggested the best place to start might be critical care areas where patients are at greatest risk if they become infected. He said it would still be important to include other infection control measures, such as good hand hygiene. Professor Keevil said the results were less impressive at lower temperatures, which might have implications for areas like cold storage areas and refrigerators. “Hygiene is particularly imperative in those environments,” he said. Professor Curtis Gemmell, director of the Scottish MRSA Reference Laboratory, said the theory behind the research was good but questioned whether it would be feasible to change surfaces to copper alloys. “I don’t know how it would stand up to wear and tear…and it’s a reactive metal and may discolour and become unsightly. “Bugs tend to go into places that you can’t easily clean. Things like door handles and surfaces should be easily cleaned,” he said. Source : BBC News - Health - 03.11.2008 |
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“The recently complete Walkergate Hospital in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne is providing a revolutionary combination of facilities for people with neurological disabilities, and a therapeutic physical environment that is being studied for its impact on patient outcomes.”
BD features Walkergate Park in March. Completed by Team Bentley, this unique facility is receiving lots of praise. Have a look at the article here
Having told BSF schools designers to try harder, CABE is prescribing an increased dose of high quality design for the NHS LIFT programme for primary health care centres. The design champion has also called for schemes falling below its ‘excellent’ benchmark for design criteria not to be approved for construction. CABE surveyed a sample of 20 out of 82 LIFT projects completed between 2002 and 2006 and concluded that only 40% of its design criteria - looking at functionality, build quality and impact - scored ‘good’ and better. Only 7% of design criteria actually met its excellent rating. The agency has also called for project delivery teams to be strengthened through more design training and the support of committed client design advisors.
‘The LIFT programme is the NHS’s biggest ever investment in improving and developing premises for primary and community frontline services, so every one of those new buildings should contribute positively to the health and well-being of the local community,’ says Mairi Johnson, CABE’s interim director of enabling. ‘Great schemes such as the Heart of Hounslow and the Plowright Surgery in Norfolk show the kind of quality we want to see routinely.’
Good design features of the buildings surveyed included a single reception point on entering a building, which can offer an early welcome and easy orientation and generous amounts of light and ventilation. Areas of design weakness found in the sample survey include prioritising maintenance over the quality of the patient environment, resulting in the use of materials that create an overly institutional atmosphere.
The briefing paper ‘Assessing design quality in LIFT primary care buildings’ can be found here.
Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson yesterday officially opened Walkergate Park Hospital for neuro rehabilitation and neuro psychiatry.
Mater Dei Hospital is a new acute hospital on Malta. When completed the new hospital project will have a total floor area of 232,000m² and approximately 8,000 rooms. The hospital will also be used as a teaching facility by the neighbouring University of Malta.
Resources in Malta have always been scarce, which is why environmental considerations have played a key role in the development of the Mater Dei Hospital.
In keeping with the environmental considerations, which have played such a role in the hospital’s development, this will be the first building in Malta with insulated external walls and with high performance glass in the windows. These will reduce cooling costs between April and November and heating costs during the other months.
Rainwater will be collected, stored and used for irrigation. Low flush toilets and environmentally adapted refrigerants will be used as well as polypropylene (PP) piping. In addition, there will be an effort to reduce electromagnetic fields at the hospital by various means.
Construction waste will be separated at source so the Maltese authorities can arrange further recycling. Preparations will be made for the recycling of topsoil from excavation work, as well as stones from the demolition of stone walls.
During the construction, trees that would have normally been cut down have instead been moved and re-planted at other sites. Rubble walls and buildings of cultural heritage value have been moved and rebuilt in a safe environment. As many as ten different kinds of waste are being sorted and recycled. Excavated material is partly used on site as road base and surplus material is used to refill an excavated quarry, which will later be used as an orange plantation.
The Mater Dei hospital is set to have air conditioning in every room and that is what will take the biggest toll on Malta’s energy bill. A spokesperson for the Foundation for Medical Service confirmed that, “each and every room of the hospital will be air conditioned as well as certain plant areas. Other areas such as corridors and service areas will be air-conditioned indirectly or not at all.”
It also seems that while those who planned and approved the hospital development did consider energy saving, renewable sources of energy were not considered, although solar power could apparently cut the emissions and energy bill considerably.
The Foundation’s spokesperson said: “No solar or renewable power use is envisaged but the design includes energy saving features such as: double glazing and UV blocks on windows; use of variable speed drives; heat recovery from chillers and air handling units; use of condensation from air-handling units; electronic ballasts on fluorescent lighting fixtures; a building automation system and other features.”
Help from the UK
The senior planning team from James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough has been helping with the migration plan [arranged by the Department of Health’s International Consultancy Division], moving all the staff, patients, equipment and furniture from the old St Luke’s Hospital across to Mater Dei. JCUH is a similar size and has recently been the subject of a similar move, so the expertise is really valuable. Middlesbrough is also a similar size in population terms to Malta at around 400,000; the climate is not similar!
P+HS opportunities
Chris P has been out in Malta at the invitation of the Maltese Government’s Foundation for Medical Service to look at the new hospital and discuss the possibility of working together on a new 200 bed rehabilitation hospital, and the redevelopment of their primary care estate.
Work has begun on the new Hendon Medical Centre at Sunderland constructed by Weatherhead Construction for Sunderland Teaching Primary Care Trust.
The piling and ground beams are almost complete, looking towards the delivery of the main steel frame w/c 10 September 2007.
The project is due for completion June 2008
The new centre makes a bridge between the outstanding clinical expertise of Moorfields Eye Hospital and the research prowess of the adjacent Institute of Ophthalmology to provide a world class children’s eye treatment facility. The arrangement of outpatients clinics, a day surgery unit, research facilities and short stay patient/parent hostel all within a very tight site has made the vertical connections between floors all important. On each floor light wells zig-zag up the building against the backdrop of a huge wall mural. Throughout, the design combines medical functionality with a rich, welcoming and easily navigable patient environment. The arresting exterior has a glass façade with a flowing pattern of aluminium solar control louvre blades - inspired by the idea of a wheeling flock of birds.
World Architecture News.Com
If you changed some of these surfaces to copper-based alloys these bacteria would be dead in 90 minutes 