Hospital benefits

Morley Glass and Glazing recently completed a £500,000 integral blind installation at Belfast City Hospital’s new Acute Mental Health Inpatient Unit.

The £20 million two-storey building now benefits from Morley’s SL20 MB system, which was specifically developed for the project to feature two operating mechanisms – one for the patient to control inside their room, and a key-operated override system for nurses to operate externally.

By using Morley’s Uni-Blind sealed units with warm edge spacer bars, rather than the originally specified units with a ceramic frit to cover the spacer bars, the hospital was able to save £thousands.

Ian Short, Morley Glass and Glazing’s managing director, said: “Once we’d spoken to the architect for the project, he was confident that not only did Uni-Blinds look better than the other systems he’d seen on the market, but this decision would save the hospital around £150 per unit.”

The new purpose-built facility sits on a three-hectare site within the Belfast City Hospital estate and combines mental health inpatient facilities previously spread across three Belfast sites, including 80 acute mental health en-suite bedrooms. The unit consists of five separate interconnecting buildings arranged around a cloistered central courtyard and communal and administration areas.