Eur.Ing David Cooper, MD of UK-based independent lift consultants, LECS (UK), considers what he dubs ‘the heavy load of documentation, legal obligations, and standards to be reached at the varying stages in the lifecycle’ of a lift within the healthcare setting, and ‘when to ease the headache with independent engineering advice’.
Healthcare buildings are dependent on lifts to provide an efficient, comfortable, safe, and reliable vertical transportation service for the movement of patients, staff, visitors, medical equipment, and ancillary services items. The responsibility involved in, and extensive range of documentary obligations required to manage a single lift, yet alone a portfolio of lifts, in the healthcare environment can be migraine-inducing. Adding to this burden is the variation of requirements depending on the environment(s) that the lift(s) operate in, and the stage of the lifecycle of each lift. The healthcare sector can in fact suffer further pain, as it has additional requirements to fulfil as set out in Health Technical Memorandum (HTM) 02-08: Lifts (2016 edition).
With the increasing shift towards litigation – personal accident claims and contractual disputes – it’s exceptionally important to get it right from the outset. To this end there are three basic issues to consider with lift installations in the healthcare sector:
Value engineering
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