Theatre fleet’s vital additional capacity

 It is a combination of careful planning, teamwork, and the specialist expertise of Vanguard’s personnel – many with a clinical background – that ensures not only each unit’s successful installation, but equally its subsequent running, servicing, and maintenance, the company explains.

Benjamin Franklin famously said “by failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail”; a mantra which seems to run at the heart of Vanguard Healthcare, which provides hospitals with access to its 40-strong fleet of vehicle-borne temporary operating theatres and surgical units. The NHS is significantly its largest client in the UK, although the former Nuffield Health business, which went through a management buy-out in 2009, also supports private hospitals and clinics, and for the past two years the company has also found itself increasingly in demand from healthcare clients throughout Europe. “Whoever we are working with, be it private, public, at home or abroad, the requirement to assemble and foster the right team environment is core to successful integration of host and third party clinical services personnel,” said Vanguard’s director of marketing and operations, Mary Smallbone. “Having successfully integrated our own clinical teams with those of our clients on too many occasions to count, we are acutely aware of the importance of working relationships, thorough operational planning, while blending our own experience and procedures with the experience of each individual hospital that we begin a relationship with.”

Planning