Doncaster children’s unit gives upbeat feel

As HEJ editor Jonathan Baillie reports, in a first for the material, “Hi-Macs” has even been used to form complete circular shower units.

The new Children’s Unit, which accommodates young patients ranging in age from newborn babies to those in their late teens suffering from a wide range of illnesses, was completed in January this year by Doncaster-based main contractor Togel Construction, based on plans developed by the estates and facilities department at the Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. The estates and facilities department’s client, in turn, was the Trust’s Children’s and Families Unit. One of the principal goals of the Unit’s construction was to be able to site sick youngsters close to neonatal and obstetrics facilities, which are also now housed in the same building. Also incorporated are new and improved facilities for parents wishing to stay with their children, including, as the Trust puts it, “a modern take on the sofa bed to each of the single rooms”, and reclining chairs in the multi-occupational rooms, or the use of the off-ward overnight room, which has its own en suite facilities. To make the young patients’ stay a little less arduous, meanwhile, and help entertain them during their time on the ward, all the beds in the inpatient ward area are equipped with their own television and PC, controllable remotely from the bedside, and patients can also connect either an MP3 or games console at each bedhead. The attractive, modern ward accommodation is split into two main areas – one the inpatient ward, and the other an observation unit, both of which feature a mixture of single rooms, and bays, which are mainly four-bedded. The Assessment Unit is used mainly for patient assessment; here youngsters can be closely monitored on admission to the hospital before nursing and clinical staff decide whether to transfer them to the main ward for further observation and treatment, or discharge them. All the rooms on the inpatient ward have en suite facilities. Steve Brunyee, estates project manager at the Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, who headed up the in-house team that oversaw the unit’s design and construction, was the man responsible for specifying Hi-Macs Natural Acrylic Stone components including shower cubicles, nurse stations, en suite bathroom walls, vanity units, and washbasins. He explained how the facility was created, before elaborating on the reasons for the selection of the LG Hausys-supplied Hi-Macs material.

Complete floor stripped out