Gleeds to help government build 40 decontamination centres

Gleeds is working on a £500m project to build decontamination centres to combat the hospital bug MRSA.

The programme involves the construction of 40 centres for sterilising surgical equipment, throughout the UK, and a range of other measures to improve standards in trusts.

Gleeds is programme managing the so-called “national decontamination programme” for the Department of Health. The programme is aimed at improving sterilisation methods in public and private hospitals to stamp out the potentially lethal MRSA infection and prevent the spread of other diseases including the human form of mad cow disease. The programme is targeting 91 UK trusts, or 50%, but may be rolled out comprehensively.

Gleeds is overseeing Ojec tenders for PFI Pathfinder contracts to build and run the first 21 decontamination centres. It has awarded the first contract, for a centre in Huddersfield, to B Braun, the UK arm of the German equipment manufacturer, which is based in Sheffield. Huddersfield will service the trusts in Leeds, Bradford and Calderdale. The project, which involves converting an existing industrial building, reached financial close in June and is expected to be complete in the first quarter of 2007.

Gleeds is also overseeing schemes to upgrade the existing sterilisation systems inside trusts

The contract for a second decontamination centre to service eight trusts in Birmingham is to be awarded in August. One or two more contracts are expected to be awarded this year. Each centre will clean an average of 250,000 trays of surgical equipment annually. They will house “washer-disinfectors” to initially clean the surgical equipment and autoclaves (giant boilers) to then sterilise the equipment.

Under the decontamination programme Gleeds is also overseeing schemes to upgrade the existing sterilisation systems inside trusts. From Gleeds’ side, the project is being run by Tony Rackstraw, director of Gleeds management services in Bristol.

The project grew out of a Department of Health sample survey of decontamination services in England in 2000. Chris Brown, policy and strategy director for the decontamination programme at the DoH, said the review was sparked by advice from an advisory committee on variant CJD, the human form of mad cow disease. The committee said there was a theoretical risk that the disease could be spread by surgical instruments if they were not properly cleaned.

Gleeds was appointed in 2002 to provide technical advice. Ministers signed off the project in 2003, leading to Gleeds being appointed as programme manager. The DoH has also appointed a legal team from Pinsent Masons and consultants Ernst & Young to the scheme. The programme is expected to last until at least 2010. The contracts to run the decontamination centres are 15-20 years long.