A new 18-bed modular ward has been installed at Kettering General Hospital (KGH) to provide extra capacity during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The ward, which was supplied by Vanguard Healthcare Solutions and has been set up in the car park at the hospital’s main site in Rothwell Road, is being used as a contingency measure, providing the hospital with temporary additional bed capacity for non-COVID patients.
A bed modelling exercise at the start of the pandemic suggested the hospital may need additional bed capacity to deal with the crisis effectively, and the Trust decided to commission a modular ward to create another ‘green’ zone, away from COVID-19 areas, where at-risk patients could be safely cared for. The stand-alone ward facility was completed within a period of five weeks, a very short timescale for a project of this nature, even without the additional challenges caused by lockdown restrictions that were in place during the build.
The modules were built off-site by Young Medical, Vanguard’s specialist modular subsidiary, and were lifted into position by crane. The remainder of the work was then completed on site to an extremely tight schedule.
The finished building is 600sqm and consists of 18 beds. There are also utility rooms, storage space and a nurse station area on the ward. The internal configuration was designed with efficient patient flow in mind, maximising the use of available space and ensuring the practical and safe transfer of patients arriving from the main hospital building. The facility is expected to remain on site for an initial period of 6 months, allowing the hospital to retain COVID-19 capacity within the hospital in case of a second wave.
