The New Queen Elizabeth II Hospital in Welwyn Garden City opened in 2015 as part of a wider reconfiguration of NHS services across East and North Hertfordshire, replacing the original QEII that had served the area since 1963.
Designed by Penoyre & Prasad and managed by East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust, the 8,541 m² facility brings outpatient clinics, an urgent treatment centre, blood tests and community-based services together under one roof, helping keep care close to local communities. To expand the hospital’s day-case capability, a new suite of Elective Procedure Rooms was delivered, including procedure and block rooms, a patient recovery suite and associated supporting spaces.
To support handover of the electrical works, Dewick & Associates was engaged to author the Electrical Services O&M Manual on behalf of the project’s electrical contractor Barton Knight Contracting.
Our focus was on producing a clear, compliant electrical documentation package suited to a live NHS environment, where downtime is not an option and the documentation has to serve both the trust’s in-house facilities team and external maintenance providers.
By Liana Ossai
Credit: East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust,used with permission for editorial/non‑commercial use. New QEII Hopsital.
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Barton Knight Contracting is a UK electrical contractor with extensive experience delivering complex programmes for the NHS, completed in live environments with minimum disruption to staff and patients.
For the Elective Procedure Rooms project at the New QEII Hospital, Barton Knight was responsible for the full electrical scope including a new Uninterruptible Power Supply, containment, data, air conditioning supplies, lighting and new bedhead trunking in the recovery wards, working alongside main contractor Storm Building on behalf of East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust.
With the works delivered inside an operational hospital under tight programme constraints, Barton Knight required a documentation partner who could turn the installation into a compliant O&M Manual without consuming site team resources.
Electrical handover documentation for an NHS clinical environment carries zero margin for error, as systems supporting procedure rooms, patient recovery, and bedhead services must operate reliably around the clock. The primary challenge was translating a fast-paced design-and-installation programme, encompassing a new UPS, containment, data infrastructure, air conditioning supplies, lighting and bedhead trunking, into a structured O&M Manual that is easy to navigate during a busy clinical day.
Furthermore, because the works were executed within a live hospital environment, the documentation had to reflect the precise as-installed reality rather than the original design intent. This ensures that both the Trust’s in-house facilities team and external maintenance providers can safely troubleshoot systems and plan future works against a reliable, 24/7 record without disrupting patient care.
Dewick & Associates’ in-house Client Coordinator and technical writing team managed, collated and authored an Electrical Services O&M Manual detailing the scope of works, equipment schedules, manufacturers’ technical data and maintenance procedures across the procedure rooms, block rooms, patient recovery suite and associated areas.
The manual covers the new UPS installation, containment, data infrastructure, air conditioning supplies, lighting, and the bedhead trunking serving the two recovery wards, with preventative maintenance guidance to help the trust’s facilities team plan and record their maintenance activity over time.
By writing for both technical and non-technical readers and structuring the content around all the electrical systems, we produced a manual that supports the day-to-day operation of the new clinical spaces and gives the trust a definitive reference for the electrical installation as built.
The project resulted in a clear, compliant Electrical Services O&M Manual that supports the long-term operation of the new Elective Procedure Rooms. The trust’s facilities team is now equipped with a structured reference for the electrical installation across procedure, block, recovery and supporting areas, helping them optimise system performance and minimise the risk of disruption in a clinical environment where downtime directly affects patient throughput.
For Barton Knight, the deliverable closes out the electrical handover to NHS standards on a project that meaningfully expands the hospital’s day-case capacity. More importantly, the documentation underpins clinical spaces where the local Welwyn Hatfield community can now access more procedures closer to home.
The content in this case study has been informed by project documentation and client communication provided to Dewick & Associates during and following the completion of the project. Where external sources have contributed to our understanding of relevant standards or industry practice, these are listed below.
East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust, used with permission for editorial/non-commercial use. *New QEII Hospital.*
Note: Some content in this case study draws on a combination of sources rather than direct quotation. Where this is the case, contributing sources are acknowledged above rather than cited inline.
Technical authoring of O&M Manuals enabling efficient plant operation and effective maintenance for equipment longevity, including:
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