Optech Fibres were tasked to install the 350 Cisco access points and cabling for three NHS Hospitals in the North Lancashire and South Cumbria areas.
The use of wireless network technologies has grown over recent years and is now viewed as an important medium which can be used in supporting a wired network, providing mobility and network connectivity in areas not suited to a cabled infrastructure. This was never more apparent as when Optech won a contract to install 350 Cisco access points and cabling across three Morecambe Bay NHS Hospitals, to provide full wireless coverage to Wards, Theatres and Administration areas.
Optech’s engineers had to work to a dedicated time frame within the Hospitals to ensure the ease of a planned roll out of a new wireless system for clinical staff. The cabling installation phase involved our cooperation with the numerous departments within the hospitals to ensure the work was conducted in a clean and professional manner. It was also imperative that Optech’s engineers were sympathetic to staff and patient needs alike in a working hospital environment. Access to the theatres across the sites had to be undertaken in a flexible manner as well and with short notice of availability. So when Optech got the go ahead for Furness General Hospital’s theatre’s, we were required to mobilise a team of 14 engineers for the installation of cabling and AP’s on a Sunday, and in time to allow the domestic team to conduct a wash down of the department to enable ‘business as usual’ on the Monday morning.
Our Project Management Team had to work in conjunction with the Trust and the hardware commissioning teams from Affinity, to ensure the infrastructure was in place in a predetermined order to enable a phased approach to the commissioning to be undertaken.
Logistically the project wasn’t so straight forward either, with Optech’s stores personnel having accept in and then re-issue 350 pre-configured Cisco access points, which had to be installed by our installation teams in the correct and pre-defined locations across the three sites, with the various antennas having to be installed with the correct AP’s to provide the desired coverage.
On completion of the installation work, which saw wireless coverage supplied to the three Hospitals within the allocated 6 week period, it was commented upon by the Affinity Project Management team, that in their experience of carrying out projects of this nature and on a national scale, they had never before had 100% first time connectivity to AP’s on a project of this size and complexity. While the Morecambe Bay NHS Trust offered their thanks for the courteous and inconspicuous way Optech’s engineers conducted themselves during the installation.
