Dividing screens’ success atSandwell Hospital

Ben Cohen, co-founder and Director of Building Services Now (BSN), explains how the BSN team worked collaboratively with Sandwell & West Birmingham NHS Trust in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, by quickly providing alterations and improvements to the existing facilities at Sandwell General Hospital to help segregate COVID-19 patients from others via a system of purpose-designed dividing screens and doors. 

Sandwell & West Birmingham NHS Trust faced an unprecedented challenge which required immediate action. As the extent of the COVID-19 pandemic became clear, the Trust had a clinical need to quickly modify existing ward space and provide additional facilities, in order to keep both staff and patients safe and reduce the potential spread of the disease. The Trust’s highest priority was the segregation of ward areas to accommodate individual beds and provide COVID-19 patients with specialist treatment.

Recognising the need to respond quickly to the evolving COVID-19 situation, Steve Lawley, deputy director of Estates (Contract and Commercial Management) at Sandwell & West Birmingham NHS Trust, put out a request to his network for the installation of dividing screens and doors on multiple wards at Sandwell Hospital in West Bromwich. Having spent many years working in live hospital wards – undertaking work ranging from refurbishment, to replacing pipework, to passive fire protection, the BSN team possesses an in-depth understanding of how a hospital operates, so we were confident that we could help with the Trust’s request. The team’s existing knowledge of clinical staff’s needs ensured that it could devise a bespoke solution for the Trust, exceptionally fast.