Rapid Response to an NHS Foundation Trust Cooling Requirements

Ashford Hospital in Middlesex represents one of two sites that form the medium sized district general hospital, Ashford and St Peter’s Hospitals NHS Foundations Trust; the other site being St Peter’s Hospital in Surrey. The Trust, formed in April 1998 following a merger of the two hospitals, represents the largest provider of acute hospital services throughout the Surrey region, serving a population of more than 380,000 people.

Ashford Hospital provides a wide range of medical and day surgical services, outpatients’ services, ophthalmology, a dedicated stroke rehabilitation unit, and incorporates the Ashford Health Centre and a Rapid Access Centre. St. Peter’s Hospital was originally built to serve casualties of the Second World War and since then has been rebuilt, developed, and extended to include maternity services, a clinic area, and a new operating theatre complex.

At Ashford Hospital, the chilled water to the Outpatients Department’s air conditioning system was being provided by two packaged air-cooled chillers that were still operating on the HCFC refrigerant R22. Both units were manufactured in 1988 and had become unreliable. In fact, one unit had already failed beyond economic repair, leaving a single chiller to provide all cooling requirements for the building. However, in May 2012 this chiller also failed and although there was an engineer on site who tried to repair it, there was no hope of a successful outcome.