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Improving health outcomes with Seacroft CDC
CLIENT: LEEDS TEACHING HOSPITALS NHS TRUST | TYPE OF WORK: REFURBISHMENT & EXTENSION | DATE: 2024/25 | SECTOR: HEALTH
Across the country, NHS organisations are aiming to provide diagnostic tests closer to home for patients, through Community Diagnostic Centres.
Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust asked us to retrofit one of the older buildings on the Seacroft Hospital site, refurbishing and extending it to create a modern CDC.
The solution
We worked on one portion of the building at a time, enabling the Trust to continue providing services from one side of the building while we worked on the other.
As well as refurbishing the existing building to make it fit to deliver modern diagnostic services, we also constructed a new extension to house a control room, CT room and radiographer’s hub.
Works included:
– New build extension
– X-ray rooms with lead-lined walls, doors and windows and new Unistrut ceiling
– CT room with new strengthened floor
– New control room and radiographer’s hub
– Improved ventilation system throughout and new air handling unit
– New fire escape
– Improved interiors and exteriors throughout the 446sqm building
– New medical store room
– New roofs, including two new flat roofs
– Building an external modular plant room
The challenges
This complex project had both practical and timeframe challenges to contend with.
The only access to the construction site was through a double door over the top of a live service tunnel. The service tunnel needed temporary works to prop it, and all materials, plant and equipment had to be sized to get through the double door, and couldn’t be too heavy to travel over the tunnel. Also, all equipment had to be taken through a live public corridor, so this needed to be managed to maintain safety for hospital staff and visitors.
Items which couldn’t be brought in through the double door – for example the external plant room enclosure – had to be crane lifted into position over the top of the hospital.
Great communication was essential
Keeping to programme and good communication with suppliers was also essential, as the building had to be ready to receive specialist equipment, with rooms and new power feeds completed ready for the delivery date. We also accommodated site visits from equipment providers Siemens so they could survey the space.
The site of the new CDC is also in the middle of a busy working hospital, with sections of the building in use throughout the build. We phased the project, so that half the building was able to continue providing medical services, while the other side was being worked on. This involved the creation of a temporary X-ray room so hospital staff could continue medical imaging while the existing room was being refurbished.
The result
The result is a new Community Diagnostic Centre which, once all medical equipment is installed, will improve access to diagnostic tests and ensure people get the right tests quickly. As well as reducing waiting times, thousands of patients every year will be able to get tests closer to home and, after diagnosis, any necessary treatment can be started quicker, leading to improved patient outcomes.
We are now working on a second phase of the project for the Trust.