The Dudley Group of Hospitals scheme involves the concentration of the majority of the Trust's acute hospital services at the Russells Hall site. The substantial refurbishment and extension programme sees the existing building and facilities growing to provide 757 in-patient beds. The redevelopment also covers the provision of new ambulatory care centres at the Guest and Corbett Hospitals to replace outmoded accommodation.

Summit Healthcare, sponsored by Sir Robert McAlpine, Interserve fm and Bank of Scotland Infrastructure Finance, are designing, building, financing and operating the new and refurbished facilities which are due for completion in 2004. Considerable attention to design is a feature of the scheme, undertaken in close partnership by architects Percy Thomas Partnership and M&E consultants, Hoare Lea and Partners on behalf of Sir Robert McAlpine.

At each hospital the environment will be light and spacious with special care paid to finishes and interior colour schemes. The Solray panels fit well with this approach as they are hidden as ceiling strips in each building, discreetly covering some 2000m2 of the development. In contrast to ordinary radiators, this type of installation ensures that the maximum amount of wall and floor space can be used by the hospital whilst a clean-looking interior finish is also achieved.

Solray Panels also successfully meet the scheme's heating performance specification, delivering a total heating output of 900 kW from each building's low temperature hot water heating circuits. This type of Radiant Panel heating is well proven and increasingly popular in hospital developments across the country, with Solray the leading brand of Radiant Panels on the market.

One key reason for their success is superior hygiene. Radiant Panels are free from the corners, ledges and joints typical of ordinary radiators which act as a "virtual magnet", trapping dirt, dust and potentially harmful bacteria. In contrast, Radiant Panels feature a simple, wipe-clean surface which is quick and easy to maintain. Originally developed by Comyn Ching more than 70 years ago, Solray Radiant Panels have evolved through the generations into the modern, highly efficient, state of the art designs proving so popular today in public sector and commercial applications.

Radiant Panels can be tailor-made to the highest standards of quality and manufactured to suit specific project requirements at the company's London-based design and production facility.

Another major hospital PFI scheme - this time in the West Midlands - will feature the market leading brand in radiant heating, Solray Radiant Panels from Comyn Ching & Co. As part of the £140 million Dudley Group of Hospitals project, over 1500 Solray panels have been specified to deliver the clean, efficient and unobtrusive heating solution for patient and public areas at a series of new and refurbished hospital buildings.