Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust has awarded a major tender to OCG Lighting for the supply of LED lighting replacements at Royal Sussex County Hospital. The Trust is making the transition to energy-efficient lighting as part of a major redevelopment and expansion program to modernise the hospital.
 
With LEDs using less than half the power of traditional lighting solutions, the retrofit also forms part of the Trust’s commitment to become a leading low-carbon organisation within Sussex. OCG Lighting’s LED alternatives offer energy savings of 52%, significantly contributing to the Trust’s carbon reduction targets of 25% by 2014/2015 from 2008/2009 levels.
 
“The Trust is committed to installing low-carbon solutions wherever possible as part of our carbon reduction targets. We identified LED lighting as a technology that offered considerable energy and cost savings with minimal disruption to our buildings”, explained Barry Kearton, PFI Estates Manager, Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals Trust.
 
“We were impressed by the strength of OCG Lighting’s technology and confident of their ability to meet our requirements.”
 
Reduced energy consumption is particularly important in areas of the hospital, such as sterile services and IT departments, where the lights are kept on 24 hours a day for health and safety reasons. The OCG Lighting edge-lit panels that will be used in these areas operate at 42W compared to 88w for conventional fluorescent panels.
 
At a time of increasingly restricted budgets, LED technology also represents considerable financial savings. In addition to the 50% energy savings, OCG Lighting’s products offer a greatly enhanced lifetime of over 50,000 hours continual usage, meaning considerably reduced maintenance costs and related disruption.
 
LED technology is increasingly being recognized as an important solution for the healthcare sector as a result of the additional benefits it offers in terms of hygiene and patient care. OCG Lighting edge-lit panels have a single flat surface making them much easier to clean than conventional four-tube fluorescent fittings.
 
Perhaps most importantly, the colour rendering (the ability to see true colours) from OCG Lighting’s edge-lit panels is excellent. This is an important aspect of hospital lighting as it allows staff to closely monitor changes in patient’s skin colouration when being taken to and from surgery, as well as skin conditions in dermatology units.
 
“Healthcare is an important sector for OCG Lighting” explained Managing Director, Simon Leggett. “LED technology not only offers hospitals considerable cost savings in difficult times but provides a quality of light that is optimum for these environments. We are looking forward to delivering our advanced lighting solutions across the healthcare sector, building on our work at Royal Sussex County Hospital.”