A new hospital in Merseyside has been fitted with around 150,000 metres of Draka cables as part of a fire detection and alarm system.

Draka's FT120 cable

Draka provided its FT120, previously known as the Firetufplus, zero halogen, low smoke (0-HLS) halogen-free cable for the 80,000 m sq of new build at Whiston Hospital. It also supplied cabling for 12,500 m sq of refurbishment to the existing hospital structures.

The £338 million construction project includes new in-patient facilities like accident and emergency, diagnostic, radiology and theatres, as well as a diagnostic treatment centre at the nearby St Helens Hospital.

A spokesman for Draka said: “Particular care had to be taken to ensure that bed-ridden patients could be evacuated in the event of a fire. Generally accepted wisdom is that this is most easily achieved if a horizontal evacuation protocol can be adopted.

“However, the new hospital is spread over five floors, making this an impossibility on the upper floors and necessitating the use of enhanced cable to ensure that the cable’s circuit integrity is maintained for longer when exposed to fire.”

Recent projects for Draka include the £100m Victoria Hospital in Glasgow, which used over 20,000m of Draka’s FT120 and 0-HLS halogen-free Saffire cable.