Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has unveiled its latest weapon in its ongoing battle against hospital superbugs.

The Foundation Trust, which manages Bradford Royal Infirmary and St Luke’s Hospital, is to become just the second hospital Trust in the country to introduce ‘isolation pods’.

The Trust hopes to have the pods in place by mid-December, increasing its side-room capacity by eight.

The Bioquell ICE-pods are from the same company which provided the Trust with a hydrogen peroxide vapour cleaning machine, which was used the cleanse seven wards across St Luke’s and BRI in September.

Director of infection prevention and control Dr Philip Stanley said the moves were part of the Trust’s efforts to reduce the number of hospital superbugs on its wards.

“The pods are a new development and Lewisham hospital tried them out,” he said. “The company has since changed the prototype and now this is the next tranche which are being tried out.

“They are temporary isolation rooms and the company has offered eight of them.”

The pods are made-to-measure and can be erected rapidly within a ward, increasing the flexibility of the hospital. Each enclosure has large, transparent windows to offer visibility for staff and patients, with opaque lower level panels to reinforce the sense of a private patient room. Curtains can be used to offer full privacy. To provide air circulation a roof mounted air handling unit is provided.

Dr Stanley the pods would enable the trust to cope with winter pressures, such as the winter vomiting bug norovirus. Four pods will be used on elderly and medical admission wards, so if patients are admitted with norovirus they can be immediately isolated from other patients.

Four more pods will be placed in ‘downstream’ wards and be used for patients who need a side room.

Dr Stanley added: “I think they will help us manage patients better. It gives us extra capacity for side rooms and that is good thing over the winter months."