Cambridge University Hospital Histopathology

A complex fourth-floor fit-out of our base build scheme, the future-ready histopathology facility is found within 1000 Discovery Drive, a project we previously completed on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, beside Addenbrookes Hospital and the ABCAM building for scientific research. The histopathology department needed to be relocated from an unsuitable building on the Addenbrookes campus to enable it to modernise and innovate its processes, which have remained unchanged over the last 160 years.

Accelerating and enhancing these processes and bringing new ideas to the fore can mean faster diagnoses and treatments, and lives saved. The blueprint for the lab and its office and rest facilities took intended base build design principles to the limits of possibility. We worked hard with architect NBBJ, the building’s users and its landlord to develop something that would meet the operational requirements of the department while keeping within those base build principles.

It was great to be back on campus, bringing to its new addition our MEP, Sustainability, Fire Engineering and Acoustics capabilities. Focusing on flexibility to support the Trust’s aims of leading a new-age histopathology development, we produced HTM-compliant labs complete with operating downdraught benches, recirculating fume hoods and purpose-developed technology to support workflow. The space also features a UK first – our purpose-built system for dispensing and disposing of formalin.

Building users had been carrying this diluted formaldehyde, a carcinogenic chemical, in buckets in their previous facility, which posed a significant health and safety risk. The system we initially developed for further design by the contractor would help get bulk formalin deliveries from the ground to fourth-floor labs.

Essentially there are two tanks; one for fresh formalin and the other for waste. Fresh formalin is pumped to a smaller holding tank in the roof that then dispenses formalin via dedicated taps to around 15 locations in the labs, allowing the team to prepare tissue samples safely with minimal risk of spillage. The installation has a dedicated disposal system that pumps waste formalin from the workstations to a dedicated gravity drainage system filling the waste tank at ground floor.