Pictured (left to right): Sandeep Sooteehall, Ekta Gohil, Steve Wedgwood, and Sal Rogers

A near-£10m project to help keep patients and staff warm, as well as provide hot water, has been successfully completed at Hillingdon Hospital.

Work to refurbish the Energy Generation Centre (formerly known as the incinerator), next to the Estates building in Kirby Way, has taken two years ,but the plant is now complete and operational.

Director of operational estates and facilities, Steve Wedgwood, said: “It is the culmination of a two-year, £9.7m build project which has been completed on time and on target financially by the estates and facilities capital team.

“The incinerator burns different types of waste, such as clinical waste that is produced in the main hospital, as well as medicines and sharps containers, at extremely-high temperatures (over 1,000 degrees) until it’s reduced to ash.

“The by-product from that, steam, would usually be vented off into the air and wasted, but by capturing and using that steam, it can be converted into energy to provide the heating and hot water for staff and patients in hospital.”

The former incinerator was closed down around four years ago, but this project, in conjunction with the Environment Agency, has seen it brought back to life.

Wedgwood said: “We have contracted with a new partner, Medisort, and are working with them and the Environment Agency to make sure that everything is done as it should be and within the regulations.

“Medisort runs the plant and it means the trust has steam that we didn’t have before, taking the pressure off our boilers.

“Meanwhile, patient clinical waste gets disposed of just across the road from the main hospital, so that’s better for the environment – and it’s safer as well.

“And there are other things we get as well, such as a new rental income for what was essentially a large empty building, and our waste is disposed of for free.

“Beyond that, the extra tonnage that is available to sell to go through the Energy Generation Centre (other than our waste) is available to the NHS and to the wider private and public waste market.”