Southmead Hospital's telecommunications infrastructure modernization plan

Community Hospital Procurement Plan

Contracts and Procurement

Southmead Integrated Community Hospital Procurement Plan

The procurement plan presents a case for the redevelopment of 35-year-old telecoms infrastructure at Southmead Hospital. The plan highlights the need for the technological improvement showing what it will contribute to the envisioned redevelopment of the modernized health care facility. The advanced technological improvement will serve to increase efficiency in record keeping and access, patient monitoring and security within the facility. The overall target of these improvements is to ensure reliability and quality of care (Carillion, 2009).

Southmead Hospital seats a 27 hectares piece of land, on the northern region of Bristol, west of Gloucester Road (A38), about 3 miles north of Bristol City Centre. The main access points to the Hospital are; to the west - the Southmead Road and to the North Monks Park Avenue. The structures within the Hospital grounds clearly depict ad hoc increment of buildings since they have a mix in the form, materials and style in their display (North Bristol NHS Trust, 2012).

The hospital has stood at the site since 1902 when the Barton Regis Union of the Southmead Workhouse was constructed. Although the site has an urban setup context, with some commercial buildings, a residential area and a supermarket, its technology is very outdated. The Hospital ground comprises of women and children hospital, Monks Park House, Pathology that was recently constructed, Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Hospital and a Learning and Resource center (North Bristol NHS Trust, 2012).

Southmead Hospital is a main branch hospital to England's fifth largest hospital - North Bristol NHS Trust. Combined with the Frechay, the two hospitals have about 9,000 members of staff and close to 1,300 beds. The two hospitals annual revenue turnover lies in the regions of 450 million pounds (Carillion, 2009).

Procurement Plan

Procurement entails acquisition of supplies, services or materials required to attain successful implementation of a desired project (Caldwell et al., 2009, Albano et al., 2006). A procurement plan incorporates measures of purchasing materials or services cost-effectively bearing in mind the budgetary constraints, time line, project funding and the project risks. A team constituted carries out project procurement plan by determining the goals of the project and assessing the available resources. Procurement planning is hence undertaken in the early stages and maintained throughout to the completion of the project (Fewings, 2010, Turner, 1997).

The procurement plan for advanced technology at Southmead Hospital considers the main objective to be improving record management and improvement of security. This objectives target improvement of service delivery and safeguarding lives within the facility.

After identification of the service provider plan will be made to move the old technology to another location where it can be accessed as the new system is put up (Weele and Arjan, 2010). This will mean further inconveniencing the operations within the hospital in terms of access to information. The procurements team will be tasked to create a temporary mechanism to facilitate access of the information as the project is being implemented.

The terms and conditions in the implementation of the new technology will have to be precise to see to it that the Southmead Hospital does not encounter elongated periods of delays. This stands out as a project risk if fund release or plan approvals are delayed. The likely occurrence or such an event is factored in the plan so that solutions are readily available (Lewis and Roehrich, 2009).

Likely challenges may result merging information from the old technology with the new technology. Backup measure to facilitate smooth migration to the new advance telecommunications and safety measures are factored in the plan. This is by providing prior training to staff and distributing information leaflets to those accessing the hospital premises (Lewis and Roehrich, 2009).

The implementation of the project will be monitored on a step-by-step basis to determine necessary possible changes to the initial plan. While planning for procurement of services and materials estimates are used (Albano et al., 2006). There is a likely hood for the estimate to fall short of the actual outcome. In the procurement planning, there are sufficient contingencies in place for this. These types of contingencies are in line with procurement procedures laid out (Dimitri et al., 2008).

Conclusion

The targeted advancement in technology at Southmead Hospital meets all the requirements for implementation and in line with the procurement guidelines. Through analysis of the requirements for the implementation of the proposed procurement, it observable that Southmead Hospital will attain it desired goal of high technology efficiency. This will facilitate its service delivery and security measures. The advance system will also facilitate a competitive edge for the hospital (Dimitri et al., 2008).