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GHD company Movement Strategies, the leading people movement and crowd dynamics consultancy, has been commissioned to support Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust in their planning of COVID-19 social distancing strategies for staff, patients and visitors.
GHD’s Movement Strategies team has been working with staff at the hospital to identify ways to increase social distance while minimising disruption to staff as they go about their essential work. They have provided advice on the flow of people through the hospital and have assessed the operation of key areas, including entrances and circulation spaces, changing facilities, staff rest areas and catering areas.
This work has helped the hospital to shape new processes and reconfigure facilities to reduce person-to-person interaction and increase social distancing.
Project lead Dr. Aoife Hunt, Associate Director at Movement Strategies, said: “Implementing effective social distancing measures is difficult in any public space, but significantly more so in high-risk environments such as hospitals, which face their own unique set of challenges as additional consideration needs to be given to those who are treating COVID-19 patients. Our main priority in this project was to ensure that staff are able to carry out their vital work as safely and efficiently as possible and all processes and solutions were designed with this firmly in mind. Alder Hey Children's Hospital’s commitment to staff, patient and visitor safety is exemplary and we would like to thank the team for their extraordinary work at this difficult time.”
Simon Light, Executive Managing Director for Europe, Middle East & Africa at GHD, added: “As key workers seek to support the UK at this time of crisis, it’s vital that the correct safeguarding measures are put in place to protect them as they serve communities and support the economy. We are delighted to be able to use our experience and expertise to support Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in the fight against COVID-19 and help minimise the spread of this horrific virus. As the UK starts to consider when and how it can return to work, understanding how to effectively implement social distancing within the workplace will be key to ensuring that this can be achieved safely and quickly. Our workspaces and routines need to undergo a significant change and every business will need to be able to demonstrate that it is putting its team’s health first.”
Movement Strategies was established to help clients improve the safety, efficiency and profitability of physical spaces, combining expertise in the collection and analysis of movement, behavioural and demographic data with a proven track record of design and operations consultancy for the built environment. The team has years of experience working across a broad range of sectors, including healthcare, manufacturing, logistics and construction, and has a deep understanding of their specific assets, operations and issues. In the current COVID-19 environment, this specialist expertise leaves Movement Strategies uniquely positioned to provide organisations with the insights they need to plan their social distancing measures in order to best protect the people and communities that use their spaces. These techniques can be applied to sites that are already operating, those that are planning to reopen, and those in the design phase.
As the world starts to consider and move towards a recovery phase, GHD has been working with a variety of businesses, including motor manufacturers, retail outlets, supermarkets and airports, to help them plan for the new working world post COVID-19 and mitigate the risk of a second wave.
About Movement Strategies:
Movement Strategies was founded in London in 2005 to help clients improve the safety, efficiency and profitability of physical spaces. The consultancy provides integrated design and operations advice for buildings and crowded places, while applying pioneering algorithms to complex spatial data sets to extract valuable insights for clients. Movement Strategies works closely with businesses in a wide range of industries, including healthcare, construction, logistics and manufacturing, and is trusted to work on the most challenging, high-profile and prestigious projects. Movement Strategies became part of GHD, one of the world’s leading professional services companies, in January 2020. For more information, please contact Dr. Aoife Hunt at E: ahunt@movementstrategies.com.