The five-phase project will see three operating theatres at Circle Health Group’s Bath Clinic revamped and a fourth created from an existing endoscopy suite. The associated patient recovery and anaesthetic rooms will also be transformed.
There will also be new staff changing and wash facilities put in, and a new roof to house the significant infrastructure needed to power and operate the equipment within the new facilities.
The challenge for Beard is that three of the four operating theatres will always remain in use while the work is undertaken and the entire project will take place alongside the clinical environment of the hospital.
Three of the theatres sit in the basement of a two-storey building with patient recovery facilities on the floor above. Beard has re-felted, insulated and re-purposed the crinkle-tin roof above this building to hold the new infrastructure needed to run the operating theatres and recovery areas below. This roof area will also house new a standalone air-heating unit as well as parallel unique and isolated power supplies.
The installation will include several 300-tonne crane lifts, as the control systems are lowered into place above the patient recovery areas.
The project is currently in phase one, with phase zero seeing the roof conversion and installation of system infrastructure and the stand-alone endoscopy unit converted to a fully-fledged operating theatre. The remaining four phases will now work through the conversion of the existing three operating theatres. The work is on track to be completed by July 2023.
Beard Swindon director Jamie Harwood said: “To carry out this extensive refurbishment alongside or above a working, clinical environment is exceptionally challenging. But we’re working with the hospital staff and our subcontractors to make it happen. The final product will transform the operating environment and facilities for patients and staff at Bath Clinic.”
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