Minimising downtime for neighbourhood health centres
Sewell Facilities Management has been taking care of Hull’s 13 LIFT health centres since they were built during the early 2000s, ensuring they can provide the best health and social care services for their neighbourhoods. Although some of the buildings are now 20 years old, they’re performing better than ever, due to our lifecycle planning process.
The new neighbourhood health centres can learn lessons from the way LIFT health centres have assessed future risks and costs and manage maintenance works, in order to minimise unexpected building failures.
The solution
We created a lifecycle model for each health centre, which looks at the wider picture around the predicted lifespan of assets. As well as forecasting when a piece of equipment will reach the end of its life, it also highlights which assets are most at risk of failure, budgets for replacements and schedules when assets need to be serviced, replaced, repaired or refurbished in the future.
Taking it a step further
We also wanted to take this a step further, ensuring replacements aren’t just ‘like-for-like’. Instead, our plan analyses whether new components will improve financial and sustainability performance, are futureproofed in terms of technology and safety regulations, and are the best products for the specific needs of the building.
We use several sources to make decisions around how and when to replace items. Firstly, we conduct condition assessments of assets every time they are serviced, ensuring we have the most up-to-date, on-the-ground information about status and performance. We also use extensive information gathered from our computer-aided FM (CAFM) systems to analyse the long-term performance of assets – with over 30,000 assets recorded across the LIFT sites in Hull. This empirical data, combined with industry guidance around predicted lifecycles and our own extensive experience of managing and repairing assets, means we can predict when components will fail, and ensure they are replaced before they break down, avoiding unexpected disruption for the health centre. It also means we give ourselves the maximum time to choose the best replacement, rather than having to find an emergency stopgap to prevent a sudden breakdown causing disruption.
The challenge
It’s vital that health centres remain open at all times to provide their valuable service to patients, and disruption is minimised for everyone who visits the buildings. This is especially true of neighbourhood health centres, which are expected to be open at least 12 hours a day, six days a week.
“With our health centres the place to go for many health services, it’s vital that they’re always operational and ready to welcome patients. Having a comprehensive lifecycle plan not only provides budget certainty for the future, but also gives us confidence that all our assets are compliant and fit for purpose, and that any replacements will improve our sustainability and avoid unplanned downtime.”
Critical forward planning
Our lifecycle plan means work can be planned in advance, and coordinated with other projects, to reduce disruption to operations.
For example, we’ve recently upgraded plant rooms in six of the health centres. As this was planned well in advance, the work could be scheduled over the summer, when demand for heating and hot water is reduced. We installed more efficient boilers, which our research showed would both decrease energy bills and the centres’ carbon footprints.
Adding efficient equipment
We also replaced lifts in two of the health centres, putting in more efficient equipment which would reduce both costs and downtime. The lifecycle plan meant we had plenty of advance notice, and as we knew that a small part of the health centre would have to be unoccupied during the lift works, we also carried out the replacement of air conditioning replacements and the installation of photovoltaic panels on the roof at the same time, avoiding multiple instances of disruption, while at the same time improving the building.
The results
Having a comprehensive lifecycle plan in place for the LIFT health centres has led to reduced costs, better performance, a lower carbon footprint and less disruption for building users.
The boiler replacements alone gave efficiencies of over 95% on the previous models, losing less energy as waste heat, and lowering gas bills. On top of this, they have smart controls, quieter operation, and better reliability.
The lifecycle plan means we can make better decisions, avoiding unexpected spend and ensuring the health centres get the assets they deserve.