NHS Birch Hill Hospital

Birch Hill Hospital required a connectivity solution for the Siemens Voice over IP telephony solution to the site in Littlebrough. As part (or most) of the site is to be sold off to private developers with in 2-3 years measures have to taken to insure the financial investment of The Pennine Acute Trust NHS is protected. Applewood Data Services Ltd was asked to design a solution for this project. RF connectivity was not an option as private housing was to be introduced in between the buildings required on the site. The following requirements were placed and solutions required.

·                  Structured category 5e wiring to the Clock tower building. A pre-war hospital with many original aesthetics Applewood Data Services planned to make sure the fabric and integrity of the building remained intact throughout the installation

·                  New communications switching location required, to house the new Siemens telephone system and to integrate with the existing network protocol for the rest of the trust

·                  Connectivity required to the other buildings on the campus with no existing backbone cabling infrastructure in place

In July 2007 Applewood Data Services Ltd successfully tendered and worked with the Trust and both Siemens to make a success of the installation of both network and IP telephony at Birch Hill.

For connectivity across the campus at speeds of 1Gbps or higher Applewood Data Services Ltd as being an official Geo Desy laser installer proposed 2 x gigabit optical laser links with fibre optic interfaces.
The 1st link (Giga Pinto 500 meter link) was to link the main maternity building and the second Giga Pico 200 meter link) to reach the “last mile” at the Floyd Unit.