Keeping the hospital running: Electricians.
Often never seen, heard of, or even thought of until something goes wrong – our Estates teams comprise a team of highly skilled and essential staff who are always there to provide our clients and our own teams with a comprehensive, fully-managed service; 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
On a daily basis, our plumbers, mechanical fitters and engineers, water management experts, painters, joiners and electricians (to name but a few) work extremely hard to ensure our clients’ theatres, wards, departments and clinics all stay open to their patients – so they can get the care that they need and to enable the clinical staff to do their jobs.
We have an acute team based at our Blackpool Victoria site and a Community team, based out of our Lancaster operation.
This month, we introduce our acute Electrical Team, based at our Blackpool Victoria site, led by Estates Supervisor (Electrical), Paul Sykes.
Paul said: “The team provide a planned and reactive maintenance and repair service to all electrical infrastructure across our clients’ Blackpool Victoria Hospital, Clifton Hospital and Fleetwood Hospital sites.
With there being as much electrical infrastructure across our footprint as there is in a small town – it becomes quite a lot to keep on top of; but we get through it!”
Paul adds: "Although there is lots of work to do because of COVID-19, we still need to undertake the routine Planned Preventative Maintenance (PPM) checks, ranging from generator and emergency lighting tests, to theatre checks.
We have however had to learn more about PPE and give consideration to how we do things. We’re extremely grateful to our clients’ clinical staff for their support and understanding with this."
Paul continues: “Since the outbreak of COVID-19, we have like everybody else, been working flat out to ensure there are always enough people with the right skills on hand, should the unexpected happen. We like to think that we play our part in keeping our clients’ hospital machine well-oiled and in good working order.
This can sometimes be stressful, given the nature and locations of our work, but it’s essential to ensuring the continuous availability of the hospital environment, which enables patient care.
Plus there is a great set of lads in the team, which certainly makes the job more enjoyable!"