Further testimony to the significance of flow in the design of public service facilities comes from the health sector. Experts from this sector pointed to one facility in particular, where the client's requirement for segregation of visitor, patient and service staff flows moving around the hospital has been solved through innovative building layout and a world-beating design solution. This facility, built under the PPP model, incorporates a number of novel features, such as the use of robotics to move goods around the facility (everything from food and linen to waste and materials), and pneumatic tubes (like the old Lamson tubes) to transport documents and samples.
"The client's requirement for total segregation of patients, visitors and FM traffic is about patient dignity. This solution [using robots to move food, linen and other goods], has another benefit for patients, because the porters who would normally spend part of their time moving these trolleys around can focus on moving people, so we're developing their skills in that area - building up their people skills - which is good for the patients, and also good for the staff, because it involves professional training for them."
And again, the innovative design of the facility brings efficiency benefits:
"Moving things like boxes and linen trolleys around with robots means we can move these items twenty-four hours a day, because the robots don't get tired, and the client doesn't need to pay us for night shifts and overtime. That gives us more scope to move non-people traffic at night when there's less patient movement and no visitors. So we get more done and there's less disruption for patients."