On Tuesday 27 October, 2gether handed over to East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust (EKHUFT) a new state-of-the-art intensive treatment unit (ITU) at William Harvey Hospital in Ashford.

Led by Head of Projects, Andy Doubtfire, this was a fast track conversion of the old surgical admissions lounge into a new ITU unit. It was designed and delivered within a tight 10-week programme and will provide eight additional ITU beds to the Trust.

The project team worked closely with senior clinicians to design the internal layouts to match exactly the required specifications. This included bespoke made to measure furniture and trolleys for each of the 8 bed bays. The nurse station was specifically designed for the users’ needs and included a range of additional storage to meet the exact requirements.

New technology has been deployed in the scheme including obscuring glass panels that can be switched both locally and remotely to be clear glass for nurse bay line of sight to all beds, or to “mist and obscure” locally to provide patient privacy. The new bay lighting is designed specifically for this application and laid out to ensure shadows are not cast over patients when procedures are taking place. The lighting also has multiple brightness settings from low illuminance night light levels through to a 1000lux for procedures; all controlled by touch controllers that are wipe clean instead of traditional switches.

The entire ward is air conditioned and includes for a specifically designed extract system to maintain a negative air pressure across the entire area.

To serve this new facility, a major upgrade to the site’s medical gases infrastructure was carried out parallel to this project by the technical solutions team.