Dorset Health Village is a diagnostics centre which was set up to combat the long waiting lists exacerbated by the recent pandemic. The popup clinic is the first of 40 community NHS diagnostics centres planned to open in England. The 20,000 square foot clinic was created by repurposing unused retail space in Poole’s Dolphin Shopping Centre.

Dorset Health Village was constructed using material from a decommissioned Nightingale Hospital, which BDP architectural firm worked on. Ehren Trzebiatowski, an architect at BDP, was the lead architect for this NHS project in Poole.

Collaborating with the architect 

Ehren became aware of Yewdale through events we’d exhibited at. Whilst planning for this project, he got in touch with Graham, our Specifications Consultant and visited the Yewdale showroom in Clerkenwell. The 3rd floor is designed to resemble a hospital ward, providing Ehren with a great environment to test our range of cubicle tracks and curtains.

Ehren said, “We approached Yewdale for its quality in terms of its curtain tracks, and also for being able to deliver the products that we needed in time for the project’s opening.”

Cubicle tracks and medical curtains

In any healthcare environment, privacy and infection control measures must be implemented. The outpatient centre at Dorset Health Village has 16 consulting rooms which are used for a variety of reasons including dermatology, orthopaedics, ophthalmology and breast screening.  

Ehren needed cubicle tracks and hospital curtains to separate rooms and ensure patients have privacy during appointments. We created a sample of the Movatrack 100 cubicle curtain track for Ehren to review with the contractor, CFES, prior to placing an order. Once both parties were happy with the quality of our products, we supplied our Movatrack 100 curtain cubicle track which features self-lubricating roller runner hooks.

Due to the urgency of the project, the cubicle track had to be fitted into the existing ceiling tiles within the shopping centre. Ehren needed to specify an NHS-compliant cubicle track that could be fitted into the existing fabric of the building, and our Movatrack met these requirements.

Our disposable curtains were also specified for this project, allowing the clinic to benefit from eco-friendly curtains which are quick and easy to replace. Our disposable curtains are manufactured in the UK, which provided Ehren with confidence that we could fulfil the order within the short timeframe.

Short lead times

The project needed to be completed quickly to ensure that the clinic could open before the winter surge when the NHS is under more pressure. We worked closely with Ehren and CFES to support the timely completion of the project. We successfully produced and supplied the made to measure Movatrack cubicle tracks and disposable curtains within two weeks of the order being placed.

Summary

Dorset Health Village is now in full operation, seeing over 25,000 patients a year, seven days a week. The cubicle tracks and hospital curtains allow the clinic to provide privacy, utilise the space available and better prevent the spread of infection.

Ehren specified our products through NBS Source. This allowed him to quickly access important product specifications. If you’d like to learn more about how we collaborate with specifiers on NBS Chorus, read our blog

If you’d like to discuss any of our products or a particular project you’re working on, please get in touch.