The installation of new shower panels from Sirrus by Gummers in patient and staff washrooms at Royal Derby Hospital has resulted in a massive annual saving of 1,500 maintenance man hours for the on-site facilities management team.
The slim-line shower panels were developed by Sirrus by Gummers in conjunction with the project specifiers and they are now part of the company’s standard range for the healthcare industry.
Described as a ‘super hospital’, the Royal Derby was designed and built by Skanska UK under the Government’s PFI programme. At the same time, the construction giant’s facilities management arm Skanska Facilities Services was appointed to handle the ongoing maintenance once the hospital opened. This meant that maintenance considerations were at the forefront during the specification process as Skanska facilities manager Simon Marriott explains: “The design and construction teams went through the normal tendering processes but then we had a say on what was selected from the maintenance point of view. In terms of the shower panels, certain aspects of the specification were pre-determined by NHS requirements; what we were looking for was something extra that would offer us an added advantage when it came to ongoing maintenance.”
Iain Stringer, commercial director at Sirrus by Gummers, takes up the story: “The Skanska project engineers came to us and said ‘you make shower panels, but so do others – how can you provide Skanska Facilities Management with a cost saving when the project is handed over?’ From experience, we knew that the biggest cost with any TMV3 valve is the annual maintenance and in discussions with the facilities management team, it was determined that easy access to the valve for servicing would deliver the sort of savings they were looking for.”
The solution reached by the Sirrus by Gummers design team was the first easy-access shower panel to be introduced to the market. Existing designs had a solid panel which had to be removed complete to give access to the valve. Removing the entire panel made servicing a two-man, one-hour job. With a small servicing panel inset into the bottom of the shower panel, valve servicing has reduced to a one-man job that can be carried out in just 15 minutes.
With something in the region of 1,000 shower panels installed in patient and staff facilities, the reduction in the annual service to a one-man job has reduced the total man hours required by over 1500 hours a year. Simon Marriott continues: “Having this easy-access panel makes servicing the showers a thousand times easier. All we need to do is remove the security screws that hold the small panel in place and we can get to the valve to carry out the work. As well as the cost benefits, this means much less disruption to both the patient wards and the staff facilities while we are carrying out the work.”
The Derby shower panel, which has since been specified on a number of other major hospital projects, is designed for flush-mounting to the ceiling. It incorporates a wax capsule thermostat to maintain stable temperatures and has an automatic shut-off in the event of either hot or cold water failure. Factory pre-set to 43ºC maximum, it is TMV3 approved and suitable for all plumbing systems above 0.1 bar.
The slim-line shower panels were developed by Sirrus by Gummers in conjunction with the project specifiers and they are now part of the company’s standard range for the healthcare industry.
Described as a ‘super hospital’, the Royal Derby was designed and built by Skanska UK under the Government’s PFI programme. At the same time, the construction giant’s facilities management arm Skanska Facilities Services was appointed to handle the ongoing maintenance once the hospital opened. This meant that maintenance considerations were at the forefront during the specification process as Skanska facilities manager Simon Marriott explains: “The design and construction teams went through the normal tendering processes but then we had a say on what was selected from the maintenance point of view. In terms of the shower panels, certain aspects of the specification were pre-determined by NHS requirements; what we were looking for was something extra that would offer us an added advantage when it came to ongoing maintenance.”
Iain Stringer, commercial director at Sirrus by Gummers, takes up the story: “The Skanska project engineers came to us and said ‘you make shower panels, but so do others – how can you provide Skanska Facilities Management with a cost saving when the project is handed over?’ From experience, we knew that the biggest cost with any TMV3 valve is the annual maintenance and in discussions with the facilities management team, it was determined that easy access to the valve for servicing would deliver the sort of savings they were looking for.”
The solution reached by the Sirrus by Gummers design team was the first easy-access shower panel to be introduced to the market. Existing designs had a solid panel which had to be removed complete to give access to the valve. Removing the entire panel made servicing a two-man, one-hour job. With a small servicing panel inset into the bottom of the shower panel, valve servicing has reduced to a one-man job that can be carried out in just 15 minutes.
With something in the region of 1,000 shower panels installed in patient and staff facilities, the reduction in the annual service to a one-man job has reduced the total man hours required by over 1500 hours a year. Simon Marriott continues: “Having this easy-access panel makes servicing the showers a thousand times easier. All we need to do is remove the security screws that hold the small panel in place and we can get to the valve to carry out the work. As well as the cost benefits, this means much less disruption to both the patient wards and the staff facilities while we are carrying out the work.”
The Derby shower panel, which has since been specified on a number of other major hospital projects, is designed for flush-mounting to the ceiling. It incorporates a wax capsule thermostat to maintain stable temperatures and has an automatic shut-off in the event of either hot or cold water failure. Factory pre-set to 43ºC maximum, it is TMV3 approved and suitable for all plumbing systems above 0.1 bar.
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