Craig Smith, FIH, MRIPH, head of Corporate Affairs at ISS, and National Chair of the Hospital Caterers Association, explains how ISS Healthcare addressed the challenge of being invited to provide the overall soft FM lead at the new NHS Nightingale Hospital London in the capital’s Docklands.
The global COVID-19 pandemic demanded that conventional thinking be suspended. The sight of China building a new 25,000 m2 (269,000 ft2) hospital in Wuhan in just six days stunned the world, but soon others were having to consider similar measures.
In the UK, a team of senior clinicians started to consider how best they would cope when the pandemic reached its height in London. From the time the general concept for the NHS Nightingale Hospital London was first formulated, to having a 4,000 bedded temporary hospital ready for operation, took less than six weeks, but this depended on some incredible teamwork, with the NHS working in perfect partnership with the military and selected contractors.
ISS Healthcare was contacted by NHS England and asked to lead the soft services FM offer. Our managing director, Chris Ash, didn’t think twice, but rather he immediately accepted the challenge, and within hours the mobilisation team swung into action. Senior team members from both ISS’s commercial and operational businesses led from the front and on the ground at east London’s ExCeL conference centre.
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