Merit awarded £6 million contract to build decontamination centre for STERIS

Offsite construction specialist, Merit, has been awarded a £6 million contract by STERIS to design and build a new Decontamination Super Centre in Chessington.

This will be the fifth decontamination facility the Cramlington-based company has delivered for STERIS since 2010.

The new facility will consolidate healthcare services for a number of NHS Trusts including surgical instrument sterilization, medical device decontamination and surgical instrument repair.

These services are currently delivered in different locations but will now be consolidated into the new facility.

More than 65 per cent of the work will be undertaken at Merit’s offsite manufacturing facility in the North East before being installed on site.

The company will use its proprietary zero carbon design and offsite Ultra PAM (pre-assembled module) manufacturing expertise to build the new super centre.

Tony Wells, managing director at Merit, said: “We are delighted to have been chosen to deliver the new Decontamination Super Centre in Chessington for STERIS.

“Having worked closely with its team on several similar projects in recent years, we have an excellent understanding of its business needs and look forward to delivering another first class facility on time and budget.

“We will use our extensive experience and expertise in cleanroom design and manufacture to precision engineer most of the components offsite in Cramlington, then transport to Chessington for rapid installation and commissioning.

“This ensures consistent high quality from our controlled manufacturing environment, while also significantly reducing time to project completion.”

Mark Brown, Project Director STERIS IMS, added: “Merit has been chosen to deliver this exciting new facility for STERIS after a rigorous and competitive selection process.

“This will be STERIS’ largest UK facility and has a demanding programme to achieve completion in early 2021 to meet the needs of our customers.

“The approach to construction, ambitious programme, knowledge of STERIS’ requirements, from experience, and competitive cost led to the award of this opportunity to Merit.”