Thames and Northumbrian prioritise water supply resilience to hospitals

Thames Water and Northumbrian Water last week publicised their work to support hospitals through the Covid-19 crisis.

Specialist Thames Water engineers have been working behind the scenes to protect hospitals, care homes and the newly opened NHS Nightingale from supply interruptions during the coronavirus pandemic.

Working with facilities teams at 175 hospitals and care homes across London and the Thames Valley, the company has strengthened contingency plans to maintain essential water and wastewater services. This has involved checking the internal water storage capacity at hospital and care home buildings and establishing where tanker trucks can park to deliver clean water in the event of an interruption.

Northumbrian Water said its teams have visited all hospitals, trusts and hospices in the region and carried out checks on the pipes and water supplies to make sure they are fully working and in the best condition. Any work that has been needed has been carried out free of charge by the company, in order to make the sites as robust as possible and ensure the water keeps flowing.

Staff have also updated emergency plans for all of the locations and carried out checks on storage and tested back up supplies to make sure they're ready to be used in case they are ever needed.

All NHS and care facilities have also been made priority sites for the teams, meaning that if anything does go wrong with their supplies, response teams are ready 24/7 to get them fixed and back on immediately.