St Peter’s Hospital in Chertsey, Surrey, is part of the Ashford and St Peter’s Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and serves a wide catchment across northwest Surrey and the surrounding area. The May Ward within the hospital provides acute care for general medical patients, specifically those with Endocrine and Rheumatology conditions and comprises 22 beds across three bays, two side rooms and a twin room.
The ward underwent a full clinical refurbishment, stripping out and upgrading a comprehensive range of elements including floor coverings and wall protection, IPS cubicles, sanitary fixtures and fittings, cubicle curtains and rails, roller blinds, door hardware, air conditioning and ventilation systems, medical gas systems, general and emergency lighting, power and data cabling and distribution, bedhead installations, access control and nurse call systems. The breadth of this scope, covering both the fabric of the ward and its full complement of clinical building services, made accurate, well-coordinated handover documentation essential for the NHS Trust’s facilities and estates team.
Dewick & Associates was engaged by Rex Hurst & Sons as Principal Contractor to produce comprehensive Building Handover Manuals with an integrated Health & Safety File for the project.
By Liana Ossai
Credit: CANVA IMAGE, NO CREDIT REQUIRED
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Rex Hurst & Sons is an established UK contractor specialising in healthcare refurbishment and fit-out projects, delivering construction works within live clinical environments where patient safety and uninterrupted hospital operations remain the highest priority. As Principal Contractor for the May Ward Refurbishment at St Peter’s Hospital, the company coordinated multiple specialist trades while managing strict infection prevention measures, phased construction activities and compliance requirements associated with working in an operational NHS facility. Delivering projects of this nature demands careful planning to ensure construction activities integrate seamlessly with ongoing healthcare services.
Alongside construction delivery, Rex Hurst & Sons was responsible for meeting the documentation obligations required at project completion. The project required a comprehensive Building Handover Manual incorporating an integrated Health & Safety File compliant with the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 (CDM 2015). The completed documentation also needed to support the Trust’s statutory duties under the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974, providing estates and facilities teams with accurate records to safely operate, maintain and manage the refurbished ward throughout its lifecycle.
Producing project documentation for a live NHS hospital refurbishment requires considerably more than assembling product literature. The May Ward refurbishment incorporated specialist mechanical, electrical and clinical systems including medical gas services, nurse call infrastructure, bedhead services and life safety systems, all of which required clear operational and maintenance information. Documentation needed to provide the hospital’s estates team with a reliable reference that supports ongoing maintenance while protecting patient safety, ensuring critical systems remain compliant, serviceable and fully understood long after project completion.
The close-out process also required the production of a fully compliant integrated Health & Safety File in accordance with CDM 2015. Information had to be collected from numerous specialist subcontractors, including manufacturers’ data, commissioning records, warranties, certificates, record drawings and maintenance procedures, while ensuring hazards associated with future maintenance activities were properly documented. Coordinating these submissions within a busy hospital programme placed significant administrative demands on the Principal Contractor, making efficient document management essential to achieving programme deadlines and delivering a compliant handover.
Dewick & Associates assumed complete responsibility for the documentation process, removing the administrative burden from Rex Hurst & Sons during the critical project close-out phase. Our technical authors worked directly with every subcontractor to obtain manufacturers’ literature, operation and maintenance information, commissioning data, warranties, certificates, testing documentation and record drawings. By managing the entire information collection process ourselves, we ensured documentation was complete, technically accurate and delivered without placing additional pressure on the contractor’s project team.
Our in-house Technical Writers produced a professionally authored Building Handover Manual incorporating a fully integrated Health & Safety File that satisfied the documentation requirements of CDM 2015. Rather than presenting information as disconnected appendices, the manual provided structured descriptions of the completed refurbishment, supported by dedicated sections covering mechanical, electrical and specialist clinical systems. The integrated format created a single, authoritative project record that enables the Trust’s estates and facilities teams to understand installed systems, identify residual risks and safely maintain the ward throughout its operational life.
The completed Building Handover Manual and integrated Health & Safety File provided Ashford and St Peter’s Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust with a comprehensive record of the May Ward refurbishment, bringing together operational guidance, maintenance procedures, statutory certificates, warranties, commissioning information and record documentation within a single professionally structured resource. The documentation supports facilities managers in maintaining building fabric, engineering services and specialist clinical installations while ensuring information remains readily accessible for future maintenance, repairs, refurbishments and compliance activities.
For Rex Hurst & Sons, the project was successfully closed out with documentation that met the expectations of an NHS healthcare environment while demonstrating full compliance with CDM 2015 handover requirements. The integrated Health & Safety File provides an enduring record of residual risks, design information and safe maintenance procedures, supporting the Trust’s legal responsibilities as the building owner. The result is a high-quality documentation package that improves asset management, reduces future maintenance risk and contributes to the safe, efficient operation of a clinical ward serving patients across one of Surrey’s busiest acute hospitals.
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.
Managing health and safety in construction
https://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/books/l153.htm
Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1974/37
NHS Estates technical guidance
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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.
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