Switchgear project meticulously managed

With detailed planning, including provision for bringing onto site temporary bulk generators, and the formulation of a 600-step switching programme, the replacement of potential faulty driver components in the disconnect mechanism for 20 HV switchgear panels was completed in just four weeks, with minimal interruption to the vast complex’s power supply. HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie, reports.

The Manchester Royal Infirmary complex, two miles south of Manchester’s city centre, comprises five hospitals – the Manchester Royal Infirmary, the St Mary’s Hospital (for women, babies, and children), the Manchester Royal Eye Hospital, the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, and the University Dental Hospital of Manchester, co-located on a 22-acre site. The Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital is Europe’s largest such facility, while the site as a whole is operated for the Central Manchester NHS Foundation NHS Trust (CMFT) by Catalyst – a consortium comprising Lend Lease, HSBC, and Sodexo – under the UK’s current largest PFI healthcare agreement. CMFT is England’s seventh largest provider of specialised services.

In a project that began in 2004, Catalyst provided PFI services for the £420 million redevelopment of the Central Manchester Hospitals. The scheme involved the replacement of three existing hospitals – the Manchester Royal Infirmary, the St Mary’s Hospital, and the Manchester Royal Eye Hospital, and the creation of the new children’s hospital, and a new mental health unit. In 2005 Sodexo secured a 38-year contract for a range of facilities management services across the site. As an indication of the complex’s overall size, a corridor around threequarters of a kilometre long running down the spine links four of the hospitals; in all the clinical and non-clinical facilities cover an area the size of 22 football pitches.