Birmingham Children’s Hospital

Rada is the sensible choice in new Birmingham Children’s Hospital centre with Faucets.

Birmingham Children’s Hospital (BCH), which is an NHS Foundation Trust, specified Rada Sense with three key objectives in mind – safety, ease of use and the longer term integrated maintenance and monitoring features.

The high dependency unit has a specialisation in the treatment of burns. The unit has three key areas – a Neonatal Surgery Unit, a Burn Centre with its own operating theatre and play and education centres. There are also accommodation areas for parents and non patient public areas.

Twenty five Rada Sense digitally controlled taps with their no touch, infra red control panels are installed on IPS panels above non overflow wash hand basins in wards and public areas as well as in the surgeon scrub-up areas adjacent to the operating theatres.

“The complete high dependency unit is a very sensitive area where every precaution must be taken to prevent cross contamination from basin-to-basin and also of course to eliminate any water borne contaminants that could lead to infection,” explains Jim Fitzgerald, the site operations manager at BCH.

In close consultation with Rada, BCH management and their architects assessed the many aspects of the Rada Sense installations and have found their inherent safety features – particularly where maintaining safe water temperatures - is critical. This coupled with their ease and speed of maintenance prove to be an effective combination.

Rada Sense differs significantly from traditional ‘no-touch’ taps because not only does the control panel eliminate risks of cross infection by allowing the user to initiate water flow, it also allows the selection of the water temperature without touching the panel.

For safety, precise maximum and minimum water temperatures and flow times can be pre-set using a remote hand held computer and these settings are maintained even if there are water pressure or temperature fluctuations.

There are also a number of functions that allow the maintenance team at BCH to maintain best practice in the hot water systems that supply the basins throughout the new facility.

The Rada Sense digital mixing valve incorporates an intelligent ‘duty flush’ feature that monitors the time since the outlet was last used. If it has not be used for a pre-determined time (say 24 hours) the appliance is automatically flushed through at a safe temperature to clear water that may have been stagnant in the pipe work or, more importantly, in any dead legs. The non use period, flush temperature and duration can also be pre-determined and logged in the mixing valve.

To comply with The Health and Safety Commission’s ‘AcoP L8’ directive, routine thermal disinfection as a means of preventing or controlling legionella is also recommended. With Rada Sense this can be achieved by activating the thermal disinfection mode which – under supervision – allows hot water at a temperature of at least 60°C to be flushed through the electronic mixing valve and all outlet pipe-work – a process that is simply not possible where conventional TMV’s are fitted.

The Rada Sense disinfection procedure is activated by a hand held computer which, by using the Sense’ T-logic intelligence, instructs the valve to allow high temperature water (at least 60°C) through the unit to the outlet. It then records the temperature and duration and produces a log of the disinfection process that can be stored on a PC.

Other key features of the Rada Sense T-logic technology include a facility that performs 5 safety checks, 40 times a second, a ‘lock out’ facility that activates if a fault is detected and a second temperature sensor that will close down the system if for any reason the water temperature exceeds a safe level. The mixing unit is supplied factory-set to comply with TMV3 safe temperature settings for hospitals.

In these critical areas high vigilance has to be maintained to eliminate contamination and the possibilities for it occurring.

Since their commissioning the Rada Sense valves have been well received by staff and patients alike and their maintenance features have enabled BCH to maintain the very highest standards within the hot water delivery infrastructure.