Estates, Facilities and Equipment
We're putting our buildings and facilities to use to support the effort to combat Covid-19.
Campus lends a helping hand
In this time of crisis, everyone has a part to play – and our estate, facilities and equipment are no exception.
Director of Estates and Facilities, Iain Garfield, co-ordinates our efforts. He's making University facilities available to support our vital NHS frontline workers.
"Newcastle University is a vast and complex organisation", says Iain. "Under normal circumstances, we're the size of a small town. We have some 28,500 students and 6,200 staff on and around our campus on a daily basis."
Unleashing the potential of our buildings and facilities
"Since the country went into lockdown, the majority of our students have gone home. Everyone other than essential welfare, security and maintenance staff are working remotely. So our campus is considerably quieter.
"What that means is that there is enormous potential to put our buildings and facilities to good use. We can support the effort to combat Covid-19. I'm incredibly proud of the colleagues who are helping me to ensure we can do so in a safe and timely manner."
I'm incredibly proud of the colleagues who are helping me to ensure we can do so in a safe and timely manner.
More ways our buildings, facilities and estates teams are contributing
- We've sent seven of our Applied Biosystems 7500 qPCR machines to the National Covid-19 Screening Centre in Milton Keynes. This will help the national effort to screen patients and critical staff.
- We're preparing our labs to provide additional Coronavirus testing facilities as and when needed. We're also repurposing some of our research equipment for coronavirus testing. More than 600 people have volunteered to be trained to help run the tests
- We're putting our technical facilities to good use manufacturing PPE for health workers and parts for ventilators
- Our maintenance team and contractors have offered to provide emergency cover for the team at the Royal Victoria Infirmary (RVI).
- We donated unused food to local homeless charities and food banks when our campus catering outlets had to close
- We're providing refrigerated and dry food storage facilities for food donated to local charities who cannot store the quantity of food that has been donated
- We're offering free parking on campus for NHS hospital workers and healthcare professionals at the RVI. We're also offering them accommodation in our halls of residence adjacent to the RVI.
- The Co-op in our Students' Union building remains open. It has also introduced a priority shopping hour for NHS staff.
- The University has donated almost 1000 pairs of safety goggles to the NHS to help protect frontline health workers. Read more about this initiative.
