Established in 1991, Southend University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust strives to provide high quality care for every patient, every time. Southend Hospital is the South Essex surgical centre for uro-oncology and gynae-oncology surgery and is a centre of excellence for stroke care. They have nearly 700 inpatient beds, serving a local population of 338,800.

Brief

The Trust had an asset base of non-DDC Dolphin bedpan washers [NW1] and pulp macerators but was looking for a trustworthy service partner to maintain their machinery and prolong its lifespan for as long as safely possible.

With highly trained engineers capable of taking care of all brands of sluice room machinery, DDC Dolphin proved to be the most suitable partner.

Solution

DDC Dolphin’s care and maintenance packages proved a real success for Southend hospital – keeping many non-DDC Dolphin machines in good working order for several years, despite the OEM making the units obsolete and no longer supporting their maintenance.

With a dedicated account manager providing accurate and non-biased reporting, they have been able to forecast and make informed decisions about replacing their sluice room assets, meaning a very low impact on their operational expenditure.

When assets have reached the end of their lifespan, they did not hesitate to replace the units with DDC Dolphin macerators. The hands-free technology was a welcome feature for the staff and the voice functionality has reduced the number of foreign objects and overloading instances, reducing the number of call outs and avoidable expenditure even further.

Outcome

"When it comes to our sluice rooms, DDC Dolphin have been the Southend, Broomfield and Basildon Hospitals service provider of choice for in excess of 15 years. Despite the fact the asset base was totally non-DDC Dolphin equipment (initially), they have delivered an exemplary service.

We have always received a very good and timely response from their engineers (mostly within 24 hours) which has resulted in manageable downtime. Once on site the engineers have proved to be knowledgeable and have delivered an acceptable first-time fix rate.

Ultimately, I know that we can rely on DDC Dolphin and would recommend them to all."

Andrew Corser, Estates Operations Manager, Southend University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust