Healthcare Lifts

Rising to the Challenge – Lifts in Healthcare Environments

Designing and installing healthcare lifts in the UK comes with unique challenges that require specialized knowledge. The operational requirements can be quite demanding, with specific physical criteria to meet. This process involves ensuring compliance with important regulations, such as the Health Technical Memorandum (HTM) guidelines, which often means dealing with complex bureaucratic procedures.

For nearly two decades, Tower Lifts’ design and installation teams have been delivering vertical transport solutions tailored to healthcare and social care settings. Our reputation for upholding the highest standards of professionalism, safety, and customer service takes on even greater significance when it comes to healthcare lifts, as the precision and reliability of our solutions are critical in ensuring the consistent and safe mobility of patients and essential equipment.

Specialist Guidance When Designing and Installing Healthcare Lifts

Tower Lifts engineers understand the unique requirements of working within in a hospital setting. The process of designing and installing lifts for hospitals involves extensive consultation with healthcare stakeholders and a detailed knowledge of the guidance concerning the design, installation, and operation of specialised building and engineering technology used in the healthcare sector.

The Department of Health’s Technical Memorandum sets stringent guidelines for lift planning, design, maintenance, and operation. Specific standards and regulations vary by lift type. The Care Quality Commission’s standards of care, offer further, contextual, information on designing for care excellence.

For example, a dementia-friendly lift design incorporates elements that create a calming and intuitive environment, reducing potential anxiety and confusion:

• Soft, non-glare lighting and contrasting colours aid visibility.
• Clear, simple controls with large buttons or pictograms enhance ease of use.
• Sensory cues, such as soothing music or gentle chimes, can provide reassurance during the journey.
• Handrails at varying heights accommodate different user needs.

Delivering a Range of Reliable Healthcare Lifts

The seamless operation of a hospital is dependent on the efficient movement of people, equipment, and technology. Whether it’s the public, healthcare professionals, or service staff, everyone requires smooth navigation within the facility. At Tower Lifts, our vertical transport solutions are designed to offer optimal performance, tailored to the unique needs of the hospital environment. Our comprehensive range of healthcare lifts includes:

Passenger Lifts For Hospitals

Hospital passenger lifts serve crucial roles in both public-facing areas for outpatients and visitors, as well as healthcare professional (HCP) facing areas for the efficient transportation of clinicians, nurses, administrative staff, and porters. These lifts are typically designed to be spacious and multiple in number, ensuring accessibility for individuals with diverse needs.

Hospital passenger lifts must adhere to the most stringent safety laws and standards during manufacturing and installation. These lifts endure exceptionally heavy usage, demanding the utmost in durability. The constant influx of visitors necessitates multiple lift iterations throughout the building to ensure smooth and reliable vertical transport.

Hospital Bed Lifts

Hospital bed lifts are tailored to accommodate beds, essential equipment, and a hospital porter or nurse. Specifically, our bed lifts have a substantial capacity of 2500kg/33 persons and provide ample space with dimensions of 1800mm width by 2700mm depth. The door opening width is set at 1400mm to facilitate easy and efficient access for all users.

Stretcher Lifts

Our stretcher lifts are designed to transport patients on stretchers, along with staff and essential equipment. These versatile lifts can also accommodate general passengers, with specially designed handrails that ensure an unobstructed central space measuring 1,400mm by 2,400mm. The door opening width is set at 1,400mm for easy and efficient access.

Stretcher Lifts are engineered to provide a robust capacity of 1,600kg/20 persons, emphasising both versatility and safety for a wide range of hospital transport needs.

Evacuation Lifts

Evacuation lifts play a critical role in ensuring UK hospitals adhere to rigorous emergency evacuation procedures. These specialised lifts are equipped with essential features such as access to every floor, key control access, and backup power systems.

Specifically designed for evacuating individuals with limited mobility who cannot use the stairs, these lifts are a vital component of hospital safety protocols. With their unique capabilities, Evacuation lifts offer peace of mind in emergency situations, ensuring the swift and secure evacuation of those in need.

Goods Only Lifts

Hospitals orchestrate complex daily operations involving the movement of people, goods, and essential supplies throughout their facilities. Our goods lifts play a pivotal role in this logistics network, tasked with efficiently transporting laundry, supplies, food to kitchens, and furniture.

We conduct a thorough evaluation of the range of goods requiring transportation and then design goods lifts that are tailored to reliably meet these specific needs. Our goal is to optimise hospital logistics, ensuring the uninterrupted flow of critical resources and materials, ultimately contributing to the smooth operation of healthcare facilities.

Accessibility is Our Priority

The installation of healthcare lifts can greatly enhance accessibility for a wide range of individuals using hospitals, including hospital workers, visitors, and patients. The accessibility requirements of those using hospital lifts tends to be complex, as it will include people in wheelchairs, individuals who struggle with stairs, patients with IVs and delicate equipment, and staff transporting vital equipment and beds.

Ensuring access within different departments of the hospital is of utmost importance, especially for patients with medium to long-term stays. By creating an environment that enables patients to move freely and comfortably, while also promoting a sense of independence, we can greatly improve not only their mental well-being but also help maintain their physical health.

Healthcare Lifts Maintenance and Repairs

In a fast-paced and efficient environment, it is crucial to maintain the performance of lifts at optimal levels. To comply with LOLER (Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations) regulations, goods lifts should undergo inspections every six months. For passenger lifts, regular service visits are particularly important, especially in areas with high foot traffic.

By adhering to these inspection and service schedules, you ensure that healthcare lifts meet the necessary safety standards and continue to operate smoothly in demanding environments. Tower Lifts offers tailored maintenance packages that are bespoke to your specific requirements. Our experience and expertise in the industry, means we can detect early signs of lift deterioration before they turn into significant issues.

Emergency Breakdown Service

A lift breakdown can cause major problems for a busy hospital. That’s why Tower Lifts include an emergency breakdown service in our tailored maintenance contracts. Our 24/7 call-out service ensures that any inquiries are promptly attended to in order to minimise the impact on operational flow. Our repair team is trained in the management of lift passengers and will prioritise the safety and well-being of all users.

In most cases, we are able to diagnose and repair the lift swiftly with minimal disruption to service.

Working With Tower Lifts

With a track record reaching back to 2006, the Tower Lifts team has significant expertise in designing and installing healthcare lifts for hospitals. Our skilled engineers possess extensive experience in navigating complex architectural environments, and we are used to collaborating with architects, developers, and other specialist stakeholders.

As an ISO9001:2015 Lift Cert and UKAS approved company, we prioritise adherence to all prevailing Lift Regulations, guaranteeing the utmost levels of safety and quality in our projects.

Would you like to speak to a Tower Lifts engineer about installing healthcare lifts? Call us today on 01525 601099.

Tower Lifts carry out design and installation on a varied range of lifts throughout the UK including:

Domestic Lifts • Food Lifts • Bespoke Platform Lifts • Service Lifts • Platform Lifts • Goods Lifts • Scenic Lifts • Heavy Duty / Car Lifts • Passenger Lifts • Dumbwaiter Lifts • MRL Lifts • Fire lifts • Residential Lifts • low-Headroom Lift