Queen Victoria Hospital NHS Trust
The Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead, is a small 130 bed hospital comprised of a number of small buildings delivering a mixture of acute and community services.
With only a small staff, the Trust has striven hard to provide the same level of comfort for patient and staff, and utility efficiency, as newer Trusts enjoy. The Trust recognised years ago that the infrastructure required investment and upgrading, but over the years projects, to renovate buildings and maintain plant, had been cut back to save scarce capital. As a result there were are a lot of imbedded plant inefficiencies, and it was impossible to guarantee the comfort of all the patients and staff.
The Trust wanted a partner to supplement their very small team of estates professionals. The Trust recognised that Cynergin's key staff, backed up the resources of Honeywell Control Systems Limited, and working closely with the Trust's personnel, were capable of applying innovation and expertise to their problems, and devising a solution which would be self-funding: preserving scare capital for clinical priorities was a major goal of the Trust. The answer was an Energy Services Performance Contract written over a 12 year term in which over £1 million of savings was guaranteed.
The introduction of PPP/PFI was intended originally to enable the Public Sector to access capital and expertise from the Private Sector, for major capital projects. It was recognised by some, that smaller capital projects, from £500,000 to £10 million would also be appropriate under PFI, so long as the development and procurement costs were kept under control. In this climate of change and innovation, ESPC's were born.
Many public sector bodies were under pressure to improve service delivery while capital budgets were being squeezed: the NHS was no exception. Backlog maintenance accounts were increasing as funds were diverted from essential maintenance and refurbishment to front-line clinical priorities, such as waiting lists. This project involved scrapping the out-dated central boiler house and decrepit ring-main, in favour of decentralised boilers strategically located in plant-rooms around the site where most needed. In addition, a high efficiency lighting retrofit, and water conservation measure were introduced, to add to energy savings. The result: a cash releasing programme, including full maintenance and a comprehensive energy guarantee over 12 years, saving the Trust £1.8 million.