4 March 2021

Four robots that disinfect surfaces in seconds have been put into action in Frimley Park and Wexham Park Hospitals.

The UVD Robots disinfect spaces more than seven times faster than manually operated cleaning machines and have allowed the hospital to quickly change around ward spaces to cope with the fluctuating numbers of Covid patients.

The new robots, from Nesa Robotics, are fully autonomous and are controlled via an app on an electronic tablet. Standing 1.7 metres tall, the self-driving machines use ultraviolet light to disinfect everything in a 360 degree radius. The robots’ tube-like appearance is made up of eight vertical bulbs which use concentrated UVC to destroy bacteria, viruses and other harmful microbes.

The robots have been in use at Frimley Park Hospital since the beginning of February, saving the housekeeping team hours of time. Currently, the number of Covid wards across the Trust is being scaled back as the number of infected patients slowly reduces. These wards need to be given an enhanced clean and made safe before they are used for other services,

One of Frimley Health’s senior supervisors, John Phillips, said: “While we have fantastic cleaning teams, the beauty of the robots is the time saved. To disinfect a normal sized ward bay usually takes 45 minutes but the UVD robots get the job done in six minutes. The old manual machines were heavy and cumbersome and there was a risk they would miss small hard to reach areas so we would have to finish off by hand.

“The robots have been invaluable, particularly as we’re trying to restore more of our services as the Covid numbers come down. We’ve been able to turn around ward spaces much more quickly, knowing they’ll be fully disinfected in minutes to ensure they’re safe for patients.”

The first of the two UVD robots at Frimley Park Hospital has affectionately been named Lynne, after one of the estates and facilities managers, Lynne Philp. The housekeeping team are now asking for help from people in the local community to think of an imaginative name for the second robot.

John said: “It is a bit of fun giving the robots names and we all need some humour at the moment. The robots do amazing jobs but they could never replace our colleagues. They may be great at disinfecting but they’re not very chatty when you sit down and have a cup of tea with them!”

If you would like to submit a name for our robot, see our Facebook page and post your ideas in the comments section.