When Lister Hospital, part of the North and East Hertfordshire NHS Trust, required a full refurbishment of their mental health crisis assessment services, they called for our skills. With our expertise and experience of working on several NHS and healthcare provider contracts, we were able to deliver sustainable mechanical, electrical and renewable energy solutions to renovate and positively enhance the space for patients and staff.

Working in a live clinical environment with sensitivity to complex care requirements of patients, the Lister Hospital required a complete refurbishment of its mental health assessment ward, known as Glaxo. We upgraded previously outdated and inefficient infrastructure with modern, purpose-built facilities. The project was completed to time and on budget, improving staff efficiency and patient experience.

The Lister Hospital is a 566 general and acute bed district general hospital in Stevenage, offering general and specialist hospital services for people across much of Hertfordshire and south Bedfordshire.

Given the complex working environment, we designed and employed innovative solutions to minimise disruption to patient care and hospital services, designing a bespoke delivery plan, split over three phases.

Phase One: Discover, design, planning and initial installations

On arrival at the site, the team were presented with inadequate historic drawings of existing infrastructure – making scoping difficult – and had a limited understanding of the original service connections.

Phase one consisted of:

• A comprehensive site survey and dilapidation report
• Devising standalone infrastructure that could be isolated from the main hospital systems
• Implementing a liquid nitrogen pipe freezing technique solution to install valves without draining entire hospital heating system.
• Audit of water quality and air flow analysis.
• Decommissioning existing supplies.
• Installation of a central pumping station and a new hot water generation system, that would allow for the complete renovation to be completed over the timeline of the project.

Phase Two: Replace, upgrade and build

• Replacing toilets and installing wall gate controllers to prevent Legionella buildup.
• Installation of anti-ligature fixtures, including specialised covers for radiators
• Replacement of heating systems and partial upgrade of the ventilation
• Start the build of the new initial assessment rooms.

Phase Three: Completion

• Assessment rooms finished
• Heating and ventilation systems replaced, finalised and installed.

Throughout the work, we complied with the Health Technical Memoranda (HTMs) 03 (specialised ventilation) and 04 (safe water in healthcare premises), as required in all NHS projects.

This renovation and refurbishment project was delivered inside of the nine-month timeframe and within budget. Lister Hospital now has increased capacity on its Glaxo ward and can provide an improved experience to its patients.

As a leading UK mechanical and electrical contractor, we are driven to deliver sustainable mechanical, electrical and renewable energy solutions to support specialist-built environment challenges. We use our expert knowledge and understanding of client objectives to design, build and maintain first-class environmental conditions and processes.

The Lister Hospital refurbishment is one of several healthcare contracts that we have successfully completed, demonstrating our expertise in this sector. The client was highly satisfied with the results, and we will be working with the Lister Hospital again on future projects.