Luton and Dunstable Hospital expansion

SJD has been working on a number of projects at Luton and Dunstable University Hospital with Parias Construction and Interiors (PCI) recently, as part of the Hospital’s major expansion and refurbishment.

Luton and Dunstable University Hospital is run by Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and provides medical and surgical services for over 350,000 people in southern Bedfordshire.

SJD’s work is helping to link the hospital buildings with a new extension block and to do this, PCI has demolished the walls of an existing storeroom and stripped out the space to create a linking corridor to the new building on the first and fifth floors. The project also includes creating a large storeroom and a disabled toilet with door automation.

SJD’s main role has been to install new lighting, and power and supplies for the door access and fire damper systems.

With storage space at the hospital limited, SJD was asked if it was possible to work on the storeroom installation in only one half of the room at a time, with the stored items shifted to the other side. The team worked flexibly and was able to accommodate this request.

One of the new corridors is adjacent to the hospital’s main lifts and recovery ward so SJD has been working very closely with the Hospital’s estates department to identify the circuits that may affect the electrical circuits and power supplies outside of SJD’s area of operation.

One of the biggest challenges has been the location of the switch rooms where one is situated across another busy corridor in constant use by staff, visitors and patients. The other was within the recovery ward surgical corridor. This is a clean zone that patients travel through, following surgery, to the adjacent recovery room.

SJD needed to find a solution that was acceptable to both PCI and the NHS Trust and with extensive experience working in a live clinical environment, proposed to install a new separate distribution board to limit any interference with day-to-day hospital activities.

The team decided to plan much of the work to take place out of the hospital’s main working hours to minimise any impact while installing cabling and containment to the other side of the working area.

Up on the fifth floor, SJD was asked to provide power, fire damper supplies, door automation and light to a newly formed disabled toilet access lobby, the new store, and corridor to the new building.    

SJD was also asked to install new power supplies, containment for door access, and a smoke damper control panel which was situated within the main entrance. Good communication and planning was essential to enable a safe method of installation in this live environment.  SJD also installed a traffic light access system for the hospital’s ground floor mortuary.

Richard Harrison, SJD’s senior contracts manager, praised the site team and in particular, SJD apprentice, Brandon for his great work. He said: “Brandon is nearing completion of his apprenticeship and has become a key member of the team. He’s had some good role models to work with and we can tell that he already has the SJD mentality. He’s shown himself to be excellent at building trust and relationships. It’s a reminder that it’s the people on site that make each project a success. Brandon will go far.”

This is the first project at the Luton & Dunstable site, but SJD has worked on several projects for Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust over the last few years.  In 2023, SJD provided the electrical infrastructure for the new CT scanner at Bedford Hospital’s South Wing. The team oversaw the project from stage 3 design to final completion and handover with PCI.  

In 2022 SJD carried out electrical upgrades for Victoria Ward which involved the challenge of keeping the building operational whilst replacing obsolete asbestos-containing switch gear, that fed all the distribution boards within the building.  To enable this, SJD worked closely with the site’s facilities team to identify what each cable was supplying, the impact of shutdown of each supply, and prioritise and programme a detailed sequence of works. The scheme also included installing the main 400A panel board within the adjacent room, and using existing mains cabling as a temporary connection, to ensure mains power was always available.

In 2020, SJD provided the new power supply and lighting for the hospital’s new MRI suite.

Find out about SJD’s other healthcare work here.