Wednesday (19 June) is National Healthcare Estates and Facilities Day, when we are celebrating the essential work of all estates and facilities professionals in the delivery of health and social care to people across Lanarkshire.
Estates and facilities services are estimated to make up around 8% of the NHS staffing, with 1,722 estates and facilities staff in NHS Lanarkshire supporting the delivery of healthcare services, 24 hours a day, all year round.
Jacqui McGeough, NHS Lanarkshire Deputy Director of Planning, Property and Performance, said:
“The National Healthcare Estates and Facilities Day provides us with the opportunity to recognise the fantastic work and valuable contribution of our team by celebrating the essential work of our estates and facilities workforce.
“They have a vital role in supporting the delivery of health and social care services to the people of Lanarkshire and we couldn’t run our services without them.
“Our estates and facilities teams make up a fairly significant proportion of our workforce, around 8% in total. Putting that into context within Lanarkshire, we have over 1,700 colleagues all working to support healthcare delivery 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
“Our estates and facilities teams carry out a broad range of activities across all our healthcare facilities. The work of the directly patient facing workforce in our hospitals and care settings would be impossible without the army of E&F professionals underpinning them, many of whom also work beside their clinical colleagues on the frontline.
“By working together, our estates facilities staff support all teams in providing a safe environment for patients, staff and visitors across NHS Lanarkshire sites.
“Please come visit us at one of our stands on the awareness day at University Hospital Monklands, University Hospital Wishaw, University Hospital Hairmyres and West of Scotland Laundry to meet some of your local estates and facilities team.”
In the last year, NHS Lanarkshire Estates and Facilities Team delivered:
- Estates Team completed 109,646 work requests
- Estates Team maintain 222,203 square metres of property
- Domestic staff clean 205,735 square metres of property
- Catering prepare and service over 1.7 Million meals to patients annually
- Customers purchased 930,296 meals from our catering outlets
- 2,400 tonnes of waste removed across all sites annually
- Switchboard answered 1,796,000 calls
- Helpdesk raised 462,205 work requests across all facilities functions
- Security responded to 18,504 incidents
- West of Scotland Laundry processes 11.5 Million items annually
- Transport fleet drive 400,000 miles delivering posts, specimens etc.
The awareness day was launched in 2022 and last year 563 healthcare organisations from all over the UK register to support the day. This represented an amazing 280,000 estates and facilities staff.
This initiative has been met with widespread approval and support from the NHS national bodies, colleagues throughout health boards, commercial providers and supply chain partners.
Watch Jacqui’s full message for staff here.
