Drainage survey team supports NHS emergency care boost

CCTV drainage surveys have been carried out by Lanes Group plc as part of enabling works for a £26m scheme to transform NHS emergency care in North Derbyshire.

Drainage engineers from the Lanes Sheffield depot have completed the surveys at Chesterfield Royal Hospital where work is due to start on building a new urgent and emergency care department.

Lanes was commissioned to carry out the work by Integrated Health Projects, a joint venture between Vinci and Sir Robert McAlpine working in partnership with Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust on the development, which is due to open in 2023.

Lanes Sheffield Area Development Manager Jay Bains said: “We’re very pleased to have been able to support an NHS project that will improve care for 420,000 people in North Derbyshire.

“Carrying out CCTV drainage surveys is one of the crucial first steps before construction work can begin, to fully understand underground sewer systems and how they need to be connected to the new building.

“This is especially important on hospital sites where drainage systems can be very complicated and, because they are added to over many years, their design, construction and condition can vary across a site.”

A team of four Lanes drainage engineers operating a CCTV survey camera unit and a jet vac tanker completed the survey of the area of the hospital site where the new facilities will be built.

The jet vac tanker was used to clean the sewer pipes to allow remote access CCTV cameras to be sent along pipes and gain access to all areas of the drainage system being investigated.

High definition video footage along 560m of pipe was recorded using a flexible pushrod camera system and a robotic crawler camera, along with a range of other data needed by the project’s civil engineers.

The pipes surveyed were all made of clay, with diameters of 100mm, 150mm, 225mm and 300mm. The Lanes team also completed STC25 asset condition cards for 11 access chambers.

The drainage survey team worked closely with the hospital’s facilities team to ensure its work did not inconvenience patients, visitors, and hospital staff on a busy and constrained site.

The development will bring urgent, emergency and primary care functions together in one department so clinical teams can work more effectively and efficiently to give patients the precise treatment they need.

It will also create a new paediactric assessment unit alongside the hospital’s children’s unit, improving the way babies, children and young people are assessed, investigated and treated.

Lanes has deep experience of working across a range of hospital facilities, delivering services that include CCTV surveying, drain unblocking, sewer excavation and replacement, and sewer lining.