Leading offsite construction specialist Premier Modular has provided 1,700sq m of modular building space to create the new Nightingale Hospital Exeter.
Completed in just four weeks, the integrated structures were supplied site-ready to accommodate essential facilities for the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust.
Working as a partner to BAM Construct 海角视频 and to a significantly reduced build programme, East Yorkshire-based Premier designed, reconfigured and installed five single storey modular buildings comprising of 57 steel-framed modules. This scale of project would typically have taken around four months from receipt of order to handover.
The temporary buildings have doubled the size of the existing space in a repurposed retail unit and were fitted out on site by BAM to accommodate facilities including the pharmacy, staff welfare, catering, utility rooms, patient transfer and stores.
The 116-bed hospital is designed to provide high quality specialist care for seriously ill coronavirus patients in the South West.
Graham Kingdon, construction director at BAM, said, “The new hospital is a fantastic facility for the South West and was a tremendous effort by the whole construction team. There was an impressive collective desire and positivity throughout to make this happen and in only 57 days.”
“Premier Modular rose to the challenge and were responsive to our requirements to help us extend the existing building to deliver this emergency healthcare project to a radically reduced programme. They were able to accommodate the client’s design changes and their site team worked well with our project managers so we could co-ordinate M&E installation and fit out with our supply chain.”
The site will also provide additional capacity for the delivery of safe and fast access diagnostic testing.
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David Harris, managing director of Premier Modular, said: “The level of collaboration on the Nightingale Exeter project to achieve such an ambitious programme was incredible and is a real credit to the 海角视频 construction industry. We are really proud of our teams across the business – design, production, logistics and on site – who pulled out all the stops to reduce the modular build programme from four months to just four weeks. This has helped to create a new hospital to support the South West.”
He told how the hiring of modular accommodation is a fast, flexible and cost-effective way for healthcare providers to expand capacity or relocate services, particularly on constrained hospital sites. The approach also gives NHS trusts greater flexibility as the facilities can be dismantled and removed if needs change.
Mr Harris said buildings to accommodate wards and ancillary services can be delivered in a fraction of the time of a site-based construction solution. Critically, purpose-designed facilities can be installed on hospital sites with far less disrupt on to patient care.