West of Scotland National Blood Transfusion Service

SCOTTISH NATIONAL BLOOD TRANSFUSION SERVICE


W S Atkins approached us with a project to design the refrigeration package for SNBTS at Gartnavel General Hospital. When we were first brought into the project there were outline drawings for all rooms which had various criteria. It was stressed to us how important the integrity of the products we were dealing with were, and if any of the rooms where ever to fail then many of the products and years of research stored in the rooms would be lost forever.

The specification:


• Design Refrigeration Package with 100% stand-by for all rooms.

• Temperature varying between – 40 degrees C to + 24 degrees C for the storage of blood and bone products.

• Main engineering problems to overcome were reaching and maintaining minus 40 along with oil return caused through plant being on the top floor of a 5 storey building.

• Client required temperature monitoring and alarm system linked into the BMS

The provision of this low temperature storage is of paramount importance to the successful operation of the Blood Transfusion Facility and it is essential that interuptions to the controlled temperatures are kept to a minimum. ACE REFRIGERATION have tailored a maintenance package therefore to meet the needs of SNBTS.

Four preventative maintenance visits are carried out each year. In the 8 years since the design was installed these maintenance visits have resulted in only a 0.8% per year failure rate on the system compressors.

While this is impressive in itself it is even more impressive when you consider the potential problems that can arise through oil being returned through a 5 story building and a temperature requirement of -40 degrees C

Bob Howieson, National Engineering Services Contracts Manager for SNBTS says "ACE REFRIGERATION Ltd have been looking after the installations at the SNBTS with the objective of ensuring there is continuity of operation with respect to refrigeration and this has been met unequivocally".

"Obviously there have been benefits in contracting the maintenance work to the Company that completed the original installations but this does not detract from the fact that the Company is well managed and that the engineers are competent and experienced. Response times to emergency call outs have been short and all problems have been dealt with in a professional manner".

If you would like any further information on this application then please contact Stephen Maguire on 0141 556 7691 or e-mail on smaguire@acerefrigeration.co.uk