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November 2022

St Mary’s School visit to West Middlesex Hospital

On Wednesday 12th October, the site team at West Middlesex Hospital welcomed 11 pupils from St Mary’s C of E Primary School in Twickenham.

The children, aged 8 – 11, have been busy designing an artwork to be installed within the hospital atrium. The site visit allowed them to see where their work will be and gave them an insight into the day-to-day running of a hospital of West Middlesex’s size.

Vercity ByWest Operations Manager Rachel Willett met them on arrival, alongside Infrared Board Director Sarah Gledhill and colleagues Chloe Levin and Emily Thomas from CW+ (The Trust’s Charity). The ISS site team also gave them high-vis jackets and lanyards.

ISS’s Logistics Services Manager, Dil, led the morning session, taking the children on a waste journey. As well as explaining the waste streams we have in a hospital environment and playing a recycling game, the children got to see the waste compound and understand how the compactor and baler machinery work. They also got to sit in one of the bin tugs!

Dil and his team provided walkie-talkies, and the children could communicate with each other, along with all the other portering staff, using the channel.

Next up was a session with HATS, who provide the Non-Emergency Patient Transport service to the site. They arranged for their children’s transport vehicle, the ‘Peter Panbulance’, to be on-site, and talked the children through its use. They had an opportunity to try some of the equipment HATS use, including the carry chair and the electric stair climber.

Lunch took place in Rumbles Restaurant, thanks to ISS, with the pupils having the opportunity to undertake a patient menu tasting of the children’s menu. It went down very well, with the chicken goujons and macaroni cheese being the most popular choices.

In the afternoon, Bouygues spent time with them discussing biodiversity and how it impacts the site. The children left after starting a competition to design bug hotels with the help of Imogen and Jaysun from Bouygues, and Lara, the artist responsible for the atrium installation. The winning design will be custom-built by the Bouygues team and installed on the West Middlesex hospital grounds.

Both the school and Sarah Gledhill were hugely grateful to ByWest, Bouygues, ISS and HATS for giving the children the opportunity to visit the site.

“Thank you to the ISS (Dil), Bouygues (Jason and Imogen) and HATS (Muniro, Luis, George and Purna) teams – they pulled out all the stops and looked like they enjoyed it too! This couldn’t have happened without all of them pulling together and has given the children important awareness of how a hospital operates as well as seeing first-hand how sustainability is considered in the built environment.

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