Climate and other challenges for Cornish hospitals

He added: “Snow is exceptionally rare here; the first I had seen in Cornwall was last winter. Our hospitals are, however, all exposed to the wind, and particularly the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Treliske, because it is built on the highest piece of land in the area. The wind really has an impact. Cornwall sees more rain than many parts of the UK,” he continued, “while if I compare the average night and day temperatures throughout the year in Oxford, where I previously worked, and Truro, in the winter Cornwall tends to be about 3-3.5˚C warmer than the middle of the country, and in the summer usually a degree or two cooler. Rain-wise, Oxford experiences an average 102 rain days annually, compared with 136 days per year in Cornwall.”

Local roofing issues James Tinsdeall moved next to examine some of the issues around roof design in the hospitals in Cornwall that his team looks after. He said: “One is that moss will grow on the roofs all year round, while the wind-driven rain will overcome any shallow roof pitches. Lightweight slates probably also need clips on the bottom; otherwise they lift. Roof plant, meanwhile, can become increasingly difficult to maintain because we suffer with seagulls, which I will come on to later.” Here he showed a slide of one of the hospital roofs in the summer ‘with about an inch of moss’ growing on it, and a ‘collection’ of three seagulls. He said: “The reason that we get moss all year round is that the moss doesn’t burn off from the roof as much as it does elsewhere in the country.” Showing a diagrammatic slide of a low pitched roof, he explained: “The 20 degree angle we have on, for example, the roof of the Royal Cornwall Hospital is the exact minimum angle for the roof tiles fitted. That might work alright in some parts of the country, but when there is a south-westerly gale blowing, and there’s nothing between you and the US if you draw a straight line, the wind tends to have a fair amount of ‘horizontalness’ about it.” As a result, he explained, the rain actually penetrated under the tiles, and the only defence between the water and the patient was then the roofing felt. The speaker added: “With the felt having been on the roof for about the past 15 years, it then starts to leak. The leak gets into the hospital space, and a severe leak can easily mean us having to close a particular area. The other consequence can be Aspergillus and mould, which is quite a concern, especially for our Infection Control colleagues.”

Fire risk apparent