Pickfords Business Solutions has completed a complex relocation of the entire Royal Papworth Hospital.

Pickfords Business Solutions were awarded the prestigious contract to move the flagship hospital 16 miles from its original site in Papworth Everard. The decision to open a new, state-of-the-art hospital was three years in the making, with initial relocation consultations being held in 2016.

The relocation of the UK’s leading heart and lung hospital took a total of eight months to plan. It was far from a simple undertaking, with the Pickfords team carefully moving vital equipment through the hospital’s many corridors and wards. The complex move entailed the dismantling, packing and unpacking of operating theatres, catheter labs, servers and critical care wards.

Pickfords implemented an elaborate colour-coded labelling system for each item to identify its department. This was necessary to complete a relocation of this scale as efficiently as possible. A total of 175 beds were transferred, requiring 302 metal cages and 2,426 bar coded crates. Pickfords deployed seven trucks a day to ensure that the relocation was fulfilled quickly. All equipment for the critical care wards had to be carefully installed into the new theatre to allow staff to test it. The theatre was fully operational by 1 May.

The Chairman of the Royal Papworth NHS Foundation Trust, Professor John Wallwork, was ultimately responsible for commissioning the relocation and praised Pickfords’ efforts, “This is our crown jewel in a new setting, and it is moving our culture as well as all the things that Pickfords have moved. It was so well worked out, and everybody worked so hard. I think that it has gone very smoothly.”

The new Royal Papworth Hospital was officially opened by The Queen on 9 July, 2019 and will strive to offer the best possible care to its patients.