Blog
Greenwood Ellis & Partners are undertaking a massive expansion project building a brand new equine hospital. Incorporated with this new building will be a complete name change – to 'Newmarket Equine Hospital' and a brand new look for the practice.
Greenwood Ellis & Partners have been based in Reynolds House on Newmarket High Street since the early 1900s and have built up an enormous reputation for dedicated and high quality equine veterinary care. As the business and staff numbers have expanded, we have grown out of our current site. In order to build on our existing established services and allow us to embrace the new veterinary technologies, we have committed ourselves to building the finest equine practice in Europe.
Although based in Newmarket, our site will offer care and clinical expertise to horses from all over the UK and Europe, from the thoroughbred racehorse or the competition horse right through to the family friend.
Follow our progress from Greenfield site to the finish site via our regular blog.
We are now within a month of finally moving to the new site. As you can see from all of the photographs for this month the site is nearing completion and the last items are being added to individual units. It is thanks to the hard work of our dedicated team of builders that we are looking forward to the move within our target date.
In surgery, we are waiting for the final deliveries of equipment and last touches to the electrical installations. The lights are in place in the two operating theatres and the pre-op and recovery rooms have been fitted out with safety floors and walls this week. The equipment for the imaging unit still needs to be fitted and although from the pictures you can see it looks rather bare, it will only take the delivery of the equipment and the laying of the floor to complete the unit.
The post-mortem suite has been completed as has the ICU building. The dispensary has been fitted out and this will be housed in the main building near to reception. In our office and reception areas the desks have been delivered and are pretty much in place. We just need to work out who is going to sit where!
Instead of last month's pile of rubble we now have a splendid new lunge pit and ménage, complete with external lighting ready for winter. The specialist bases and surfaces have been laid and these two are ready to use now. Externally, there is still some landscaping to do as you can see from the photos. This is an on-going part of the project as the planting is so weather dependant however, it is underway and we look forward to the final effect.
All of the barn and external stabling have been completed and are ready to use. The on site housing is already occupied!
All we need now are the packing boxes!
Every time we visit the site we are impressed at how far it has progressed since our last visit. In the July photographs, you can see the two operating theatres are coming along very well. Each theatre has dedicated fully protected pre-op and recovery areas. The mechanisms for the theatre machinery are beginning to be put in place and you can now visualise the finished unit much more clearly. Close by is the Intensive Care Unit which looks very near to completion. The boxes in
The Imaging Unit building also looks much nearer to completion now that the boxes are fully finished. All that is missing is the imaging machinery and the building’s finishing touches and furnishings.
The completed areas include the main barn format and individual day boxes, the roads and car parking areas surrounding the complex, the hay barn, machinery barns, loading ramps and muck heap. The farriery unit just needs the farrier and his kit!
A couple of new additions put into construction since June are the isolation boxes which you can see in the picture showing 4 individual boxes across a paddock area. These will allow for complete isolation of patients and will enable staff to maintain a full infection management programme. The other addition is shown by the photo which currently looks rather like a pile of rubble! This is the beginnings of a full 20m x 40m ménage which will allow staff to lunge or exercise horses in a safe environment.
Hopefully when we return in a couple of weeks, we will see these two new additions in a fully functional state as we near the final push towards our moving-in date.
The external roads, carparking areas and external lighting are now in place. The office areas are painted and although still being used as storage areas for remaining building items, there are actually only the ceiling tiles and electrical installations to complete. The office crew have already been in to measure up for desks!
The operating theatres and after-care areas are coming along. The barns and stabling are all but completed other than the external levelling and connecting to services. The building for the nursing and yard staff is pretty much completed externally, the hay and storage barns are up and the muck heap built! The paddocks are coming along and although not fenced yet, they have benefited from the recent rain and sun.
It is getting much easier to imagine the finished site and staff excitement is building at making the move.
Things are moving fast…! Stable doors are up, the on-site houses are nearing completion and the vast glass frontage area is in place.
The site suddenly looks less like a site and more like a work place. Several of the vets and administration staff have now been round the site and are delighted with the huge amount of space the site offers. The barns and stabling are nearing completion too. The office and main structure still have a fair amount of work to do internally but the room layouts are in place, the IT and electrical cabling ready to go in and it is becoming more obvious how the space will work.
The paddock area has been laid to grass ready to offer vital turn out space for recovering patients.
Throughout these months, things seem to have certainly progressed quickly. We managed to get on site to get a great batch of photos showing the progress made since last month and also the newer buildings which have been started recently. The brickwork is in pretty much in place now and the site is really beginning to take shape. The photos show a vast change from the last month’s and we can clearly make out the barns and in-patient units that are taking place, as well as the venting unit infrastructure for the operating theatres being laid out ready for use.
The main unit will have a huge frontage area of glass and will incorporate the main entrance to reception area and the ambulatory administration team. The glassed area will be used by our referral team who will have this office area dedicated to their team which includes our surgeons.
The smaller unit is the area we have dedicated to imaging and scanning. Jo Weekes, our radiographer, will be in charge of this area.
January 2008The main structure of the office and reception areas is now up. The box and barn areas have foundations dug and the initial structures are beginning to take shape. The first barn structure was put up last month but the others are following on rapidly.
There are three houses on site, which will be occupied by veterinary interns so we have professional care available 24/7. The first of these is starting to take shape and is situated close to the main structure.
The weather this month has been slightly inclement but this does not seemed to have stopped our builders and we are on schedule for completion in Autumn 08.
As you can see, these are the early stages of our new building. The foundations are being dug and the cranes are in place ready to complete the structure of our main building and reception area. The plans show the layout of the final site which will incorporate two operating theatres, a dedicated imaging and scanning unit, specialist after-care and post operation areas, stables blocks and barns, a post mortem suite plus office space for our ambulatory and referral veterinary, yard and administration staff.