Winner: Facilities Management Team, NHS Property Services

What they did

NHS Property Services (NHSPS) has one of the largest property portfolios in the UK, with more than 3,000 properties and 7,000 tenants across England at a total value of more than £3 billion. This is 10 per cent of the total NHS estate.

The NHSPS team of 4,000 FM staff including facilities coordinators, team leaders, cleaners, porters, engineers and caterers was tasked with critical acts of creation and keeping buildings, assets and people safe and secure during the lockdown.

NHSPS needed to repurpose space to provide urgent additional bed capacity and maintain safe and clean environments to new infection control standards to enable medical professionals to treat patients safely.

How they did it

NHSPS trained their cleaning teams to support the cleaning of in-patient areas where patient(s) have suspected or confirmed COVID-19.

The team also hosted sessions with tenants’ cleaning teams to ensure compliance with new PHE standards.

Between March and August 2020, the FM team:

  • conducted 2,585 deep cleans to reduce risk of infection;
  • carried out over 15,000 emergency or urgent jobs and 18,000 non-urgent tasks;
  • supported 1,738 site risk assessments; and
  • facilitated the temporary closure of 98 sites to reduce the spread of infection.

In anticipation of staff sickness, NHSPS recruited and trained 435 new employees to ensure smooth running of clinical services.

Collaboration between the NHSPS’ asset management, construction and FM teams ensured vacant and underused space could be identified and assessed before recommissioning, reconfiguring and refurbishing it – often out of hours and during weekends – for more hospital beds and testing facilities.

With infection prevention and control standards top of mind, the FM team installed new heating systems, clinical-compliant sinks, fire compartments, lighting systems, signage, beds and mattresses, water systems and replacing flooring.

The results

At the time of submitting the award entry, NHSPS had:

  • handed over 29 sites to local NHS bodies;
  • created space for 1,036 beds for patient treatment;
  • completed jobs in record time;
  • delivered 300 solutions for other space requests from NHS commissioners and healthcare providers.

NHSPS has the footprint, resources, access, and integration with the NHS to help fight the pandemic. The team has provided the best possible response on the frontline and at high speed.

Twitter: @NHSProperty

LinkedIn: NHS Property Services