New PKL Healthcare Day Surgery Unit

Please see below a Press Release from the Robert Jones & Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic and District Hospital NHS Trust website:

The new short stay surgery unit at the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt was named the Menzies Unit on Friday 23rd October, by the daughter of John C Menzies. The Unit was named after the hospital’s Secretary Superintendent (nowadays called a Chief Executive) from 1928 to 1956, John Menzies OBE. His daughter, Mrs Pat Anderson and grandson Richard, travelled from the Reading area to perform the official opening ceremony.


John C Menzies is a well remembered an honoured name at the Orthopaedic hospital. His administrative genius was particularly displayed after the hospital fire of 1948, when he quickly instigated the funding of the hospital rebuilding programme. He died in 1990 at over 90 years of age. The name Menzies was given to a former ward and the sign from then will be transferred to the new Unit. John Menzies’ portrait painting now proudly hangs in the reception area of the new Menzies Unit, beside the opening plaque.

Wendy Farrington Chadd, Trust Chief Executive thanked those involved, saying: “This is a superb facility which will improve quality of care for patients. The Unit comprises three operating theatres, which means that we now have an additional two theatres, as one replaced the old day case theatre. It was constructed within a very short timeframe and our thanks must go to the specialist contractors PKL Healthcare, the project managers from Capital Symonds and our own staff, in particular Consultant Anaesthetist Dr Sumeeta Conry and Unit manager Ande Joseph. It was a true partnership approach which has delivered a fantastic result on schedule.

We are honoured that the Menzies family have made the journey and delighted that, through the generations, they have remained friends of the hospital.”

Installation of a twin operating theatre into a busy central London hospital courtyard

Finding space for new facilities on crowded hospital estates can be incredibly difficult, with hard to access courtyards sometimes being the only available land. ModuleCo specialise in delivering into complex locations, using off-site construction to utilise underused locations such as courtyards and rooftops.


The installation of the twin operating theatre into Guys and St Thomas Hospital was a near was a real challenge. The hospital itself is located in the heavily congested heart of London directly opposite the houses of Parliament, and the courtyard site was surrounded on all sides by buildings from 7 to 13 storeys high.

With no vehicle access, traditional construction methods requiring lots of heavy vehicles on-site were ruled out. By manufacturing 80% of the twin operating theatre off-site in controlled factory conditions before craning it into place as 6 separate modules ModuleCo were able to bypass these problems, delivering the facility with the minimum possible disruption to the hospital site.

The Modules are protected for transport and delivered by flat bed lorry - 80% of fitout has already been completed in controled factory conditions.

A cranes lifts the modules directly from the lorry to the courtyard site

The operating theatre being craned high over an intervening 7 storey building

The modular operating theatre is lowered into the courtyard

The twin operating theatre is delivered into the restricted courtyard before being installed

The ModuleCo modular operating theatre - Complete

The delivery was meticulously planned by ModuleCo's experienced project team to minimise the time craning was taking place on site, ensuring:

• The smallest possible cost to the client
• The least disruption to staff and patients
  
• The biggest reduction in health and safety risks

With so many tall buildings surrounding the courtyard, ModuleCo had to crane the entire twin orthopaedic theatre over a large intervening 7-storey building.

Thanks to a dedicated, safety conscious delivery team and a well-organised hospital Trust all modules were craned into place quickly and efficiently without compromising on health and safety.

In just 2 days the entire twin orthopaedic operating theatre was craned and installed into the courtyard at Guys and St Thomas Hospital, providing fast-track healthcare facilities at the very heart of the hospital’s campus.