DOORS, WINDOWS & BALUSTRADES
SUPPORTING INVESTMENT IN HOSPITALS In 2019, the UK Government announced a £13bn investment programme for NHS hospitals, including the construction of six brand-new facilities by 2024 and significant investment in the development and refurbishment of 34 existing hospitals. Further plans announced in July 2020 included additional funding for major infrastructure programmes. a history of providing W ith high-quality, highperformance systems for a wide range of public sector infrastructure projects, including hospitals, Smart Aluminium Systems’ Managing Director, Eddie Robinson, said: “The Government’s focus on major infrastructure projects, and in particular hospitals and schools, has been widely welcomed. Our experienced teams are looking forward to bringing their expertise to bear across these nationallyimportant new-build, refurbishment and upgrade projects and to working closely with our fabrication and installation partners to deliver the right solution for each scheme.” Smart’s systems have been used extensively across a wide range of healthcare projects, from medical practices to NHS Trusts and laboratories,
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with two examples, Kingston Hospital and The James Black Building at the University of Glasgow, perfectly showcasing the company’s flexible and collaborative approach to delivering projects of widely-ranging scale, scope and complexity.
Refurbishment programme delivers improved environment for patients and staff When the Kingston Hospital NHS Foundation Trust embarked on a major refurbishment programme to replace the windows and doors of the hospital’s Esher Wing, the programme was designed to not only improve the building’s aesthetics, but also to improve thermal performance, reduce energy costs and deliver improved patient, visitor and staff comfort. The seven-storey block contained a mix of wards, operating theatres, maternity units and administration facilities, with all four elevations still featuring the building’s original 1960s heavy-duty steel windows, which were well beyond their useful life. Although the size of the windows was quite large (nominally, each was 6m wide by 3m high), the main installation issues were logistical, with work being carried out as the hospital continued to operate. In slots of nine hours, the teams had to take out the old windows, fit new units, change the radiator and clean the area (whether it was a ward, operating theatre or office) to clinical standards.
