A £22 million ProCure21 contract to redevelop the medium secure unit at Langdon Hospital in Dawlish, Devon is showcasing Interserve's innovative approach as main contractor.

The international support services and construction group, on behalf of Devon Partnership NHS Trust, is currently undertaking phase one of the hospital redevelopment, incorporating a new 60-bed medium secure unit and a range of supporting therapeutic facilities.

Innovations include the use of Kingspan's KBS load bearing building system, which provides pre-fabricated, pre-insulated internal and external wall panels. These are produced off-site for partial cladding on-site, using robust cement fibre boards internally and traditional brickwork to parts of the external envelope. Elsewhere, robust, waterproof cement board is being used onto which insulated, light-weight render is directly applied.

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The system was developed with Interserve's management team to address the specific needs of the project, which included speed of build, dimensional accuracy, removal of site health and safety issues, a fully coordinated M&E approach and robustness of the internal linings. The latter were stringently tested with heavy implements, to simulate a sustained attack in order to demonstrate their robustness to the NHS Trust.

Keeping services well out of the reach of patients, and to enable the facilities management engineering staff to carry out service/maintenance works without entering occupied areas, Interserve has created purpose built M&E service corridors within the roof of the building immediately above the occupied areas. Running away from these main arterial services runs, secondary services branches drop to below via individual service riser shafts to serve patients’ bedrooms and their en-suites, and to the other administrative/communal areas.

The design of the 6,182m2 hospital, produced by Devereux Architects in close consultation with the hospital’s clinicians and Interserve, is for a truly state of the art facility that will set the standard for new medium secure establishments.

The contract is due for completion in March 2013.

(CD/GK)