Three Kent hospitals have seen significant upgrades to convert their Minor Injury Units into Urgent Treatment Centres to provide additional medical space and modern facilities with support from property and construction specialist, Ingleton Wood.
Improvements to ventilation, new lighting, flooring, and upgraded waiting areas with disabled access across all the sites, were made to the MIUs at Victoria Memorial Hospital in Deal, Royal Victoria Hospital in Folkestone, and Sevenoaks Hospital, all managed by Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust (KCHFT), one of England’s largest NHS community health providers. In addition to the UTC upgrade, a new therapy kitchen has been installed on the inpatient ward at Sevenoaks Hospital to allow elderly and vulnerable patients to re-adapt to home life before leaving the wards following treatment.
Ingleton Wood provided multidisciplinary services, including producing feasibility reports for all three sites to determine the work scope and ensure that all requirements from the initial brief could be addressed within budget. Mark Reeves, senior associate QS at Ingleton Wood, said: “Despite many challenges faced during the COVID-19 pandemic, in addition to budget constraints t, we were able to manage many different challenges and make any alternations to the plan as required.”
Fleur Cromarty, KCHFT’s head of Estates Capital Projects, said “The upgrades to these hospitals have been very well received. The pandemic has been a challenge, but we were able to complete the works while continuing to provide patient care, thanks to the support of Ingleton Wood, which was seamlessly managed these vital requirements.”
Ingleton Wood a sizeable property and construction consultancy that covers Central England, East Anglia, London and the South East, with offices in Colchester, Norwich, Cambridge, Billericay, Oxford and London. Its services include architecture, building surveying, building services engineering, planning, interior design, civil and structural engineering, quantity surveying, project management, and health and safety.
The main contractor on the three Kent hospital projects was Perfect Homes, and the mechanical contractors were Mountair.
