Royal Liverpool University Hospital

New 857-bed acute facility built adjacent to the existing hospital. Delivering 640-bed en-suite bedrooms, 18 operating theatres, for inpatient and day-case surgery and 40 critical care beds for patients in the intensive care and high dependency units, along with a large clinical research facility placing Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust as a national and international leader in clinical trials and studies. CHt worked alongside Laing O’Rourke to complete this 96,000m² acute facility, organised around several courtyard spaces and consisting of four technical clinical floors at the lower levels, five floors of wards, a top floor of administration space for future ward expansion, and plantrooms at levels 3 and 10 to serve the technical floors and wards respectively.

Complex engineering

In addition to the management of all MEP work packages, our in house specialists Enterprise Solutions provided the direct delivery of BMS, information management and technology (IM&T), security, modular wiring and DALI lighting controls, and delivery of preassembled service risers, primary distribution corridor modules, AHU valve assemblies, and plant skids. All preassembled service modules were designed and manufactured at our offsite facility.

The BMS includes a fully IP-based open protocol system, energy management systems, SAP, management information systems (MIS), and facility management software, while its use of advanced protocols and web service applications such as XML, SOAP, OBIX and FTP allow information to be exchanged between these systems.

During the complex works taking place, we were mindful that the live Liverpool Health Campus was reliant on the same energy centre. Through close collaboration with the Trust, we planned energy management activities by preserving electricity, water and steam to ensure no impact on the needs of the existing hospital while we commissioned the new-build project.

Our Approach

To ensure a seamless transition into the new Royal Liverpool University Hospital, we meticulously planned a route through the live construction site for 7,500 hospital staff to complete an induction prior to the move. This allowed staff to familiarise themselves with the building design quicker and more easily.

Flexibility of our approach allowed for the creation of a temporary Covid-19 unit within the live construction site.

Our team was challenged for a solution to the evolving threat of the pandemic, at the time this was an intensive construction site with no complete, live or commissioned systems to support clinical care. However, our team immediately commenced works to segregate the areas within the construction site, divert the MEP and specialist systems services, including ventilation, medical gases and sprinkler protection, making two areas of the new hospital available to create The Agnes Jones Unit.