Dr Susanne Surman-Lee, and George McCracken, head of Estates Risk and Environment at Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, take an in-depth look at some of the challenges and complexities of maintaining safe and hygienic healthcare water systems.
Dr Susanne Surman-Lee, a State Registered Consultant Clinical Scientist, and director at independent public health consultancy, Leegionella Ltd, and George McCracken, head of Estates Risk and Environment at Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, take an in-depth look at some of the challenges and complexities of maintaining safe and hygienic healthcare water systems. They argue that many of the problems surrounding poor quality of water in healthcare are ‘due to a lack of ownership, lack of detail in contracts, and poor understanding and training of those involved in the design, specification, build, installation, and commissioning’.
Funding promised by the government for new hospitals is to be accompanied by new standards to revolutionise design and speed up construction. This raises some concerns that in the rush to complete the buildings by 2030, the safeguards built into existing good practice guidance, and adequate time to develop Water Safety plans to prevent mistakes in water system design and specification, through to commissioning and handover, will not be factored in. This has the potential to pose risks to health – and even cause death – for the most vulnerable of patients. Many of the problems surrounding poor quality of water in healthcare are because of a lack of ownership, detail in contracts, and poor understanding and training of those involved in the design, specification, build, installation, and commissioning. In addition, the communication between the project teams and those who have to operate water systems on a daily basis must be improved
A press release on the www.gov.uk website on 2 October last year, entitled ‘PM confirms £3.7 billion for 40 hospitals in biggest hospital building programme in a generation’, noted ‘Funding confirmed for 40 hospitals, with a further eight schemes invited to bid for future funding to deliver 48 hospitals by 2030’. It also referred to the development of new standards ‘to help revolutionise design and speed-up construction’. 1
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