Secure I.T. Environments Ltd, one of the UK’s leading designers and builders of modular data centres, working in partnership with Chase Farm Hospital – part of the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust – has completed the development of a new 45sqM external data centre in just 12 weeks.
The new data centre forms part of the trust’s wider redevelopment project that will enable it to lead the way in innovate healthcare with a five-storey acute hospital containing an urgent care centre, eight theatres and a day surgery unit. The completed redevelopment of the hospital will have its official opening in Summer 2018.
The new data centre has been designed to meet BS/EN1047 fire rated test standards and regarded as the benchmark standard for new data centre`s being installed today and with a high level of security to protect patient data and the services being provided to the hospital 24/7. The new data centre will play a key role in the day-to-day running of mission critical IT systems for the hospital.
As an “energy efficient” data centre, its Mechanical & Electrical infrastructure is in an N+1 format, and ensures operational continuity of the facility with a PUE of 1.2. Key to the installation is the timescale for completion to enable the demolition of a building housing the existing facility.
A key challenge for this project was that the location of the data centre, which was on the route to the main hospital buildings – all of which were being demolished as part of the major investment project. Main contractors needed the road constantly available for heavy demolition vehicles, whilst maintaining security of the data centre site which was keeping the rest of the hospital’s IT infrastructure operational throughout the project.
A new incoming site mains power supply from a substation was also needed for the data centre, something that had to be very carefully managed in partnership with the main site contractor given the data centre was in constant operational use.
Chris Wellfair, projects director at Secure I.T. Environments said, “Particular care has to be taken when providing data centres for the healthcare sector. We have delivered many projects for trusts across the UK and our meticulous attention to detail has made sure each has been a success, contributing to improving patient care and operational performance. Due to the dependency that the NHS Trust has on Information technology for both patient care and day-to-day operations, it is imperative that critical completion dates are met and to date we have not let them down.”
