While it can be argued that all maintenance is critical, nobody can argue that there is an application area more critical than a hospital. This is a zero-downtime environment - where availability of equipment, services and a tranquil atmosphere are symbiotically tied to patient recovery. Maintenance contractors to hospitals must offer the fastest reaction and the optimum solution. For a hospital in Devon, the expertise of Rotamec, an electro-mechanical engineering service provider, has helped to guarantee patient comfort.
Hospitals are a hive of activity. This Devon hospital sees nearly 80,000 people at its A&E department every year, with roughly 7000 staff serving a local population of hundreds of thousands. At the forefront of the area’s healthcare capability, the hospital offers patients access to vital services ranging from general surgery to mental health facilities. To guarantee an exceptional standard of care, the hospital ensures that all of its building services operate with maximum reliability, which is where Rotamec comes in.
Jonathan Whitlock, Branch Manager at Rotamec’s Exeter facility, explains: “Our services focuses on the refurbishment or replacement of engineered equipment such as pumps, motors and gearboxes. At this hospital, we primarily help to ensure the reliability of the ventilation and heating systems. These are of course vitally important for patient comfort and the critical medical procedures that take place. Therefore, we must be able to respond to potential issues within hours, offering reliable engineering solutions within highly pressurised time periods.”
Heating and ventilation ensures that all areas of the hospital are kept at a consistent ambient temperature. For areas such as operating theatres, the quality of air and heating available is key to a successful procedure and patient recovery. Even something as simple as a faulty bearing on a fan motor can produce noise that is amplified through ductwork across the building, disturbing the tranquillity needed for fast patient recovery. Reliability of equipment translates directly to standard of care.
“Our on-site teams have been involved in a wide variety of works,” Jonathan continues. “From repairing motors, changing bearings, servicing fans, refurbishing compressors, refreshing pumps to supplying new belts and spares – we can offer a complete turnkey service to keep these systems running as efficiently as possible. We have past experience working with engineering departments at hospitals in the local area, so our teams are able to work at these sites carefully and quickly.
“The needs of a facility such as a hospital must always come first. In the past, we’ve hired out generators and compressors for sites to guarantee available redundancy. Recently we delivered and installed an entirely new Altas Copco compressor on short notice. Whatever the issue, we must be highly reactive from first call out to final installation and testing.”
Jonathan concludes: “Another advantage we hold is that we can repair or specify new as is required. This means a cost-effective repair is always an option, which is beneficial in maximising the effectiveness of a maintenance budget. However, if a new unit is required, we can meet that need too. It’s this flexibility matched with our reaction times that means we can effectively service the multitude of maintenance demands presented by large healthcare facilities,”