We love managing complex projects… and it doesn’t get much more complex than this: the complete closure of the main corridor at the Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust for 5 weeks to allow for the removal of asbestos within the ceiling void. To complicate things further, the corridor connects the North & South zones and is the main access route from the Emergency Department to CT, Radiology and other key wards.

On the asbestos side of things, we were limited to what we could survey whilst keeping the corridor open during the tender stage. There was also the challenge of working within a ceiling void that contains live services from power to medical gas supplies. Once a contractor was procured, we had the mountainous task of planning to divert the entire hospital: medical staff, patients, visitors, suppliers, porters, cleaners, etc.

The scope of work was for the complete removal of asbestos and full environmental clean of two corridors that are both 30m in length. But above all, the project brief was to ensure that time-critical patients would not be impacted by the closure.

Working closely with the site and resilience teams, we identified several keys factors that would need to be implemented to make the project a success. This included different diversion routes for different departments, the exclusive use of lifts to transfer patients only, the provision of assistants, and so on.

Upon completion of the asbestos removal, the final task was to reinstate the floor, ceiling and wall finishes and leave it looking nice and brand new.

What was a challenging project to deliver was made a lot easier thanks to the cooperation of staff and visitors to the RUH.