Today, we proudly mark National Healthcare Estates and Facilities Day – a day dedicated to recognising the vital work of our estates and facilities colleagues across NHS Lanarkshire.
Colin Lauder, Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Planning, Property and Performance, said: “I’ve worked in the NHS for the past 40 years, covering both clinical and non-clinical services across various health board areas.
“With this experience, I can say with absolute certainty – the NHS simply could not function without the dedication and commitment of our healthcare estates and facilities staff.”
National Healthcare Estates and Facilities Day is much more than just a token celebration. It’s a genuine acknowledgment of the essential role healthcare estates and facilities colleagues play in keeping our patients, staff and visitors safe – every single day of the year.
With over 1,700 estates and facilities professionals, that’s 8% of our workforce, working around the clock their contribution touches every corner of our health service.
Whether it’s maintaining critical infrastructure, cleaning clinical areas, serving meals, managing waste, delivering post or running our switchboards – their impact is enormous and far-reaching.
Healthcare estates and facilities colleagues work in hospitals, health centres, vaccine centres and community settings – working hand-in-hand with clinical teams to ensure we can deliver the best possible care to the people of Lanarkshire.
The scale of healthcare estates and facilities colleagues work is remarkable.
In the last year alone:
- Our estates team completed over 109,000 work requests and maintain more than 222,000m2 of property.
- Domestic teams cleaned 205,735 m2 across all sites.
- Catering teams served over 1.7 million meals to patients
- The switchboard handled an incredible 1.79 million calls, and
- The laundry processed over 11.5 million items.
Colin added: “Today is about recognising all of this and more. Healthcare estates and facilities colleagues are the foundation that enables safe, effective and compassionate care.
“On behalf of the entire senior leadership team – thank you for everything you do, every day. NHS Lanarkshire is stronger because of you.”
