Interserve Group has been awarded a government contract to convert three hotels into Covid-19 isolation centres to accommodate patients recovering from the disease.
The Department for Health & Social Care (DHSC) has appointed the group’s construction division to convert the Holiday Inn Heathrow Ariel hotel. It has been block-booked by the DHSC for use as an isolation and quarantine facility should it be required.
It is intended for use by international visitors to the UK who develop coronavirus symptoms and for Britons returning home from countries that have had Covid-19 cases.
Interserve Construction is also converting the Holiday Inn Brent Cross and the Crown Plaza Stockley hotel into isolation units for the Home Office. These will accommodate asylum seekers who exhibit symptoms associated with Covid-19.
The contractor has already converted two other facilities into isolation units on behalf of the NHS – at Arrowe Park Hospital on the Wirral and at a hotel and conference centre at Kents Hill Park in Milton Keynes. They were used to quarantine British citizens evacuated from Wuhan, the epicentre of the pandemic in China.
Mark Buckle, divisional director of Interserve Construction, said: “Interserve Construction and Interserve Engineering Services have considerable experience and strong capabilities in delivering significant NHS facilities across the UK, as evidenced by the work we have done on the new NHS Nightingale Birmingham Hospital.”
Interserve Construction was principal contractor on the first phase of the NHS Nightingale Hospital Birmingham on behalf of the NHS and the University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust. More than 400 employees and contractors and 60 Gurkhas from the British Army worked over 86,000 hours on the project at the NEC.
Picture Credit | Interserve