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Cheltenham General Hospital – Interventional Radiology Theatre
This refurbishment programme started with the complete re-provision of Cheltenham’s Globe Operating Theatre circa 2010. Following this hugely successful scheme, the trust appointed Quattro’s Hospital Architects to design an interventional radiotherapy operating theatre along with attendant accommodation, including anaesthetic room, control room, reporting room, preparation room, scrub up, generator room, disposal sluice and disposal hold. The challenge was to provide this state-of-the-art facility in a live environment with minimal impact on Theatre down time. A task made even more difficult, given the Theatre location was within an aging collection of buildings, on multiple levels with limited construction accessibility.
Through successful collaboration with the clinical, design and construction teams, our Healthcare Architects were able to generate a construction strategy that allowed adjacent areas to remain operational during the construction, whilst also being delivered within a very demanding programme. Key to the success of meeting the programme, and limiting the Theatre shut down, was the high standard of detail design at tender stage. The project was fully designed prior to tender issue, with particular emphasis on the M&E co-ordination, this enabled the successful contractor to start on site, without the need for any additional surveys or design information.
The Theatre features a bespoke skirtless ventilation canopy to allow the x‐ray imaging (C‐arm) equipment to pass below. Special cellular beams were designed to support the weight of the C‐arm, with a maximum permissible de- flection of 1mm over 6m and also allow ventilation connections to the canopy. The touch‐screen theatre control panel allows user interaction with the ventilation, lighting, medical gases, power supply, fire alarm and audio‐visual systems. Further integration includes the ability for the images from the installed HD camera (in the surgical light head) to be transmitted anywhere in the world. The theatre table is carbon fibre, and to allow the C‐arm to take x ‐rays of any part of the body, the table position can be adjusted for roll, pitch, yaw and laterally, and will even remember the procedure position for each patient.
The end result was the delivery of a state-of-the-art theatre refurbishment. The Interventional Radiology Theatre in Cheltenham General Hospital was an extremely successful project for the Gloucestershire Hospitals NHSFT. Quattro’s Hospital Design Team’s ability to design and phase the project in such a way to enable the continued use of other live areas of the project was enormously valued by our client. As was our collaborative approach to the project design and stakeholder engagement. Our willingness to go the extra mile to ensure great project outcomes was very much valued by the team.