23 April 2020

TWYVER PROVIDES NEW SWITCHBOARD FOR THE GENERAL INTENSIVE CARE UNIT AT SOUTHAMPTON UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL

Following our successful delivery of electrical equipment for the North Wing Cardio Vascularisation Department back in 2004, we were asked to be involved in providing a new switchboard for the General Intensive Care Unit (GICU) for Southampton University Hospital.

The switchboard had to be designed around a very tight new switchroom to provide supplies for all of the new services required for the GICU. It is also equipped with facilities to enable a portable mobile generator to be connected very quickly in an emergency. Facilities have also been incorporated to provide automatic changeover to an Emergency supply in the event of a main supply power failure.

In addition to the above, there are also sensors that have been fitted to the bus bar system, so that temperature readings can be monitored remotely on the Hospitals asset advisor system. The ambient temperature / humidity of the switchroom is also monitored at the switchboard so that the asset advisor system can automatically compensate temperature readings during periods of hot weather.

On the 24 March 2020, a day after the Government announcement regarding Covid-19 pandemic, we were informed by the Hospital that the projects we were working on had been selected by the Trust to be of strategic importance to the safe and ongoing delivery of excellent clinical care within the Trust. As such we were asked for our support to maintain progress with the essential works of the Trust.

To enable us to continue to support the Hospital and other “Essential” clients, we very quickly put in place extra measures and procedures to protect against the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19) and comply with the UK Government’s guidelines. These special measures were carried out by us both in the factory as well as on sites.

The new switchboard had to be designed in a “U” shape structure to fit the room and was dismantled into 6 separate sections in our factory and then delivered to the Hospital to be individually installed together. As expected, our operatives were fully equipped with all the required PPE for site operation and complied fully with “Site COVID-19 Operational Procedure” set out.

In just two days, by the end of Good Friday, the complete “U” shaped switchboard had been delivered, off-loaded, moved into the new switchroom and then re-assembled, installed, tested and handed over to our client on site.