Working in a tight three-sided courtyard location within two metres of existing walls, while minimising noise, dust, and other disturbance which could have affected the recuperation of neurological patients housed in adjoining wards, and simultaneously co-ordinating its work with that of another contractor undertaking a separate, major building project extremely close by, were among the challenges successfully met by MTX Contracts during its recent completion of a new, modular three-storey extension to The Walton Centre in Liverpool.
The Centre is a field-leading facility for neurological and neurosurgical treatment. Jonathan Baillie reports.
Located next to the Aintree University Hospital, a large teaching and tertiary hospital some six miles north of Liverpool’s city centre, The Walton Centre was completed in 1998 by AMEC, and is said to be unique in the UK in being operated by the only specialist standalone Trust treating patients suffering from a range of neurological conditions. Dealing with conditions ranging from multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease to motor neurone disease, stroke, spinal and head trauma, and some types of cerebral and spinal cancers, the Centre treats around 3.5 million patients annually, drawn from a sizeable catchment area stretching from the Isle of Man and North Wales in the west to Merseyside, Cheshire, and parts of Lancashire and Greater Manchester, in the east. Increasingly, as part of the UK’s only specialist neurosciences Trust (The Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust), the hospital also deals with referrals from hospitals elsewhere in the UK, lending its expertise particularly in treating “complex and difficult” conditions, such as Devic’s disease, an inflammatory disease of the central nervous system which affects only around 400 UK patients a year. The hospital’s 800-strong workforce includes some of the UK’s leading neurological surgeons, neurologists, and pain management consultants. At a meeting at the hospital to discuss MTX’s recent successful completion of a three-storey modular extension containing offices, education and training facilities, and staff changing rooms and rest facilities, The Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust’s head of procurement and facilities Paula Staniland explained that the need for the new extension had been highlighted following publication of a report by the Trauma Audit and Research Network (TARN) at Manchester University. TARN undertakes research into instances of injury UK-wide leading to death, and aims to improve response to, and treatment of, serious “trauma” injuries by providing “accurate and relevant” information to doctors and nurses, to help reduce mortality rates in the future. Paula Staniland said: “One particular TARN report, published in 2006, strongly endorsed, using statistical data, what many working in neurological surgery and therapy had long believed: that patients suffering some form of neurological trauma – for instance a head or back injury following a car accident – tend to recover faster when treated in a specialist neurological hospital rather than in the ‘neuro’ department within a traditional acute hospital.
Trust conclusions
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