BMS Strategy Review at Poole Hospital

Poole Hospital B-Block

Hurtwood have completed a review of the upgrade options for the obsolete BMS at Poole Hospital. The site had an ageing Sauter BMS, much of which was either obsolete or approaching obsolescence. It wasn’t felt to be serving the complex needs of the hospital.

Hurtwood carried out an in-depth review of the hospitals requirements. We spoke to members of staff whose departments needed specialist monitoring and control. For example, temperature monitoring is increasingly mandated by the Care Quality Commission. As a result, numerous radio based systems had been adopted by the microbiology and pathology departments to monitor temperatures. Many of these systems were also ageing. We also looked at the mechanical services and the likely changes to understand how the BMS would need to evolve. Key to improving reliability of the services is improved monitoring.  To achieve this, the new BMS would be able to monitor the already installed Variable Speed Drives (VSD). Modern VSDs can provide a wealth of data  on the health of the drive and motor over a field-bus.

From our work, we produced a 20 year strategy with a refurbishment timescale. The strategy re-used up-to date elements of the existing system with the new equipment necessary to provide a modern BMS.  Crucially, this approach would help to spread out the cost burden of refurbishment. Most importantly for the hospital, we were able to quantify the energy savings. These savings often came from improved temperature sensing and presence detection control. Also, a 21st century system would  monitor itself and the services more effectively and flag energy problems. This intelligence would prevent energy wastage going undetected for long periods. The raft of measures we identified provided an economic case for the BMS refurbishment. This opens up other options  such as Salix funding for the Trust to fund the replacement. Crucially, this would allow the Trust to conserve limited capital funds.

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Hurtwood are one of the foremost experts on building management system strategy, helping clients to navigate through the complexities of refurbishing often obsolete BMS.

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