Many years ago I had the good fortune to work with an Engineer of genius guy statue. He was an American citizen of Indian (as in Delhi, not Delaware) origin, and a Ph.D holder. Back in those days I was very much into "kit". What I mean is that (like many who contribute or lurk on this forum, I should imagine) I used to concentrate on the engineering support and maintenance of medical equipment, to the almost total exclusion of everything else (it was, after all, my job). Well, there was a new hospital build going on at the time, and it the was the good Doctor K. who introduced me to the concept of "the hospital as a system". Like all real Engineers, good and true, he had an ability to "think outside the box" and his methods certainly helped me to remove the blinkers, as it were. He was the guru, and I was, er, Luke Skywalker (or should that have been the Karate Kid?).

One of the strange outcomes of one of our treasured British characteristics (ie, the tendency to want to always do things "on the cheap") is that, believe it or not, we have often been at the forefront when it comes to hospital design. I’m thinking cost effective, value for money, throughput, utility etc. here, as opposed to opulence (eg, as seen, for instance, in Riyadh).

So, for any of you who still don’t know your Harness from your Nucleus, your Nightingale from your Pavilion, your Best Buy from your PFI, or even your Greenwich from your Northwick Park, I can heartily recommend

this link.

Be warned, though, that it is an 80-page PDF file, and that once you get hooked, you’ll be wanting more!

Some of you may even be working in hospitals of pioneering design, without perhaps realizing it. For instance, the West Suffolk Hospital at Bury St.Edmunds (Best Buy), Maidstone (Nucleus). There are, of course, many others.

So, read on, and yet’s have the discussion. As you may have gathered, I have enjoyed my own involvement with new hospital projects over the years, and strongly feel that it’s an area where the voices of us biomeds need to be heard. As I’ve said before (and only partly in jest), the last people who should be allowed to design hospitals are architects (or, even worse, doctors)! Having said that, there have been some brilliant hospital architects around (about more of which later, I hope).

Taking you a step further into the simple and harmless pleasures afforded by gazing at nice hospital-related stuff, here are another couple of interesting links:-

This one includes the Harness system prototype model, and the KKESH in Riyadh (although I think the date could be in error)!

Whilst this one includes (amongst others) the BECaD at the Central Middlesex, and some nice links to European designs of note.

All good stuff, then!

Just to keep this one on the boil, as it were, I’m interested in hearing about designs for the biomedical engineering department, good, bad (or totally lacking)! Are they included in recent PFI builds?

In my experience, the biomedical engineering department is often overlooked completely by architects at the design stage, and even when challenged they usually respond by announcing that these "repair people" can simply use one of the workshops grudgingly sketched in at the service building!

Placing modesty aside, I can honestly say that all the new hospital projects I have been involved with did have BME when they opened, although some of them amounted to converted ration stores, garbage rooms and the like (ie, I had arrived on site too late in the day)! On the other hand, some were brilliant (even though I say it myself), handily located (near to ICU and theatres), correctly sized, with piped medical gases, parts store etc., etc.

Below we see my lead architect from a previous life caught red-handed carving-out extra space for a recent new build somewhere out in the vastness of the desert. Note the two-handed working (as time was short)!

A couple of links to a slightly different form of architecture, food for thought.

Subteranean Britannia
Secret Bases

Huw and I once had the pleasure of visiting the Kings Bunker in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It was an amazing place, with corridors wide enough to drive cars in and a fully equipped mothballed Hospital, hundreds of feet underground! Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take cameras.

For design of the ulitimate biomed department see Portakabin's website!! At least two of the departments I've worked in were built using Portakabins, that said they worked out better than the converted chapel or disused store rooms of other sites.

Several years ago I serviced some lab equipment at Drax or it may have been Ferrybridge, I can't remember which (memory going with old age). The lab and some of their offices were in a "building" consisting of 13 Portakabins in a 2x3x3high complex (it was an odd sort of shape).There was only one entrance to this and a maze of ways to get from there to where the lab was.Needless to say I got lost several times. The facilities and general liveability in these cabins seriously rivaled that in traditional buildings.

There used to be an underground hospital beneath the British Military Hospital in Berlin. When you went down there you were totally sealed off, complete with NBC ventilation systems etc. It was a bit like being in a massive submarine. I don't suppose that it's a secret any longer (but if it still is, that's me blown it)! Anybody know what happened to it? I believe that the BMH itself is now a civvy hospital called Paulinien Krankenhaus. I wonder if anyone told them about what was "downstairs"?

This link includes some photos not only of BMH Berlin, but also some nice "tourist" views of Berlin itself (remember the "Pope’s Revenge"?), plus bits of Hannover and BMH Rinteln as well.

Is this the one you had in mind, Bill? Look quite nice, don’t they?

Thanks for the link Geoff!!!
I currently reside in one of these "tempory buildings" whilst the new PFI is being built. It's OK but gets extremely hot at times.
Anyway, we'll see how long it stays up.