Whopping £3.4m is spent on making Milton Keynes hospital draught-free by double glazing hundreds of windows

The ‘Operation Decarb’ required military-style planning so each one of the wards and operating theatres would face minimum disruption.

The contractors Ashe Construction were funded by Salix, the government-owned funding organisation, and the aim was to reduce the hospital’s massive energy bills.

The hospital was constructed in 1984 and all the windows were single glazed, meaning the buildings nomlonger met efficiency targets.

They all needed to be replaced with thermally efficient double glazing – but many of them were on occupied wards each with eight beds.

It was impossible to decant an entire ward of patients, so Ashe maanged to do the work with only the patients from the two beds nearest the windows needing to be relocated

And the company had to pounce upon a “window of opportunity” before each area was started – particularly where operating theatres were concerned.

The hospital required three months’ notice for the start of the works to allow for closures to be communicated to staff, and operations to be scheduled accordingly. Each theatre was shut down for three weeks at a time for the new windows to be fitted.

But Ashe adhered to these strict timescales and managed to complete the works to operating theatres ahead of programme. And the team also shaved four weeks off the original schedule for the wards, fitting in total 456 windows, 22 doors and a curtain wall have been installed.

The company’s contracts manager Steve Cockram said: “We only got one day to cordon off each area to the safety and hygiene standards required by the hospital, which takes around two hours.

"We then removed the existing windows, installed the new windows, clearing any debris and cleansing the area to high clinical hygiene standards ready for patients to move back into the bay by the end of the day.”

A major challenge was upgrading the windows in the hospital’s shop. The shelving and refrigerators were all positioned against the windows which had to be moved from the working area, old windows removed, new windows installed, then all returned to their original positions, in one working day, whilst the shop remained open to the public.

Steve said: “Despite the best programming, it was inevitable that some wards would not be available as planned due to emergencies, therefore it was decided that all of the new windows would be ordered and stored within easy access of the site so that we could pivot quickly to work in another part of the building should access be denied.”

Extensive mechanical and electrical works have also been carried out providing new energy efficient air handling units (AHU) to ensure clean ventilation. The AHUs serve four of the main operating theatres at the hospital, so timescales were crucial in achieving theatre re-commissioning.

Ashe has also installed the services in preparation for the upgrade of the steam generation for the hospital’s autoclave sterilisation system. The works will enable the hospital to transition from gas-powered to an electrically-heated system, to make it more energy efficient.

Careful co-ordination with the hospital was required so that one of the four main entrances could be closed for two days to allow use of a crane.