Hulleys brings specialist knowledge to world-renowned hopsital
18.09.08
Mechanical & Electrical Consulting Engineer, Hulley and Kirkwood, have been selected to help transform facilities at a world-renowned research hospital. The Nuclear Medicine Department at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge specialise in safe forms of radiation used to diagnose and treat a huge range of medical conditions – from broken bones to cancer. The facility also undertakes cutting-edge research into medicinal radiation and specialist radioactive materials are produced for use both within the hospital and by external agencies. As part of a £5 million scheme to extend the department, specialists from Hulleys have been selected to design the array of complex building services needed, from fully backed-up power supplies to sensitive airflow systems. State of the art research laboratories will join an expanded radiopharmacy suite, which is where sensitive medicinal radioactive materials are produced for use across the Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
Hulley’s Regional Director, David Stairmand, said: “As you would expect from a leading research facility such as this, both the equipment that will be used and the working environments in the new department are incredibly sensitive and need very careful management. On top of that, it is obviously essential that power supplies to medical equipment are fully backed up at all times. Ensuring that the year-long redevelopment does not disrupt existing services also provides us with a new set of challenges.”
This is a complex job with a unique set of challenges in terms of both the design and the phasing of the work needed to keep the existing department open at all times. One of the biggest challenges is ensuring that the conditions within key parts of the building can be very closely controlled to ensure that sensitive equipment such as gamma cameras operate properly and don’t disrupt other facilities despite their very intensive peak loads. Similarly, attention must be paid to air flows in laboratory environments to minimise the risk of cross-contamination and to ensure research conditions can be tightly managed. Fortunately, we have a great deal of experience in this area, not least having recently completed similar work on facilities within the new University Hospital Birmingham as well as medical research facilities at several universities across Scotland.
Works on the scheme are due to begin in March 2009 and will see around 750sq m of new build space created and around 1,000sq m of the existing department refurbished in four phases. The existing department, which was first set up 30 years ago, already receives more than 10,000 referrals a year from all major departments at Addenbrooke’s hospital, as well as from other hospitals and general practice in the area and needs further space into which to grow. The newly-developed department will contain expanded clinical areas, including facilities for a total of four gamma cameras, which are used to create images of internal organs.
