Swindon Intermediate Care Centre (SWICC) is part of Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and provides in-patient stroke, general rehabilitation and support to patients following surgery or falls to avoid the need for long term admission into hospital. We were instructed to carry a fire compartmentation survey for the four storey care centre, which was built in the late 2000’s.
Why us?
We have built a strong reputation in delivering compartmentation surveys across a number of sectors, including the NHS.
The Challenge
In the final stage, we began the fire compartmentation survey. As a working hospital, there were areas of the building that may have been deemed sensitive or only accessible at certain times. To overcome this, we liaised with on-site security to facilitate access to areas such plant and boiler rooms and we worked closely with the various departments and clinics on site to ensure all the required areas were surveyed during the most appropriate times to avoid disruption to daily operations.
What We Did
Establishing a clear line of communication with the hospital and its staff from the start was imperative to ensure that our surveyors could gain access at the most appropriate times, without affecting the service or its patients. At mobilisation, we requested a range of information such as current fire risk assessments and asbestos registers. This allowed us to begin a project plan and also to complete a site specific risk assessment of the project. In order to complete the surveys within the requested deadlines and to a high quality, we allocated two surveyors to complete the survey over a three-day period. Once the fire strategy was found to be acceptable, we began the development of CAD plans to include fire compartment lines and hazard rooms.
Our Achievements
We provided SWICC with access to the compartmentation survey via the Bolster Systems online portal. Bolster is an electronic management application relating to the passive fire protection of a building. It incorporates the installation, documentation and management of remedial works to fire barrier penetrations and general fire stopping within a building. Bolster allowed us to produce an Excel schedule containing details on each issue and PDF formatted report including photographs. The Excel and PDF documents were made available to download via workspace, our online cloud storage facility, which SWICC were given unlimited access to throughout the length of the contract.
We then gave ownership of the survey, via Bolster, to a fire stopping contractor to complete the remedial works. We completed the survey within the agreed timescales and received great feedback from the client regarding the high level of detail within the report. As a result of the commendation, we were referred by SWICC to Savernake Hospital, Marlborough, to complete compartmentation surveys for their site.
