Remembering Nigel Howchin
Nigel Howchin sadly died on Monday 7th December 2020 following a short illness, after suffering a stroke in November. He was 68. Nigel was a much loved member of the Whipps Cross Hospital Estates team. We are all greatly shocked and saddened by this sudden loss.
Nigel was a terrific electrical engineer with wide experience and knowledge. He started his career working in the Royal Navy as a Chief Petty Officer on nuclear submarines. He later worked as a design engineer and many years working at a number of hospitals.
Away from work he enjoyed playing golf and was in the process of refurbishing an original 1960 Lambretta. Nigel joined the WX Estates team in 2015 and worked for us for 5 years as our Senior Engineer. His role was to liaise with all the project developments at the hospital, and set up safe procedures for all our maintenance activities.
He had recently decided to retire.
The first photo here is Nigel in his Barts Health Estates Dept hi-viz coat, on the day we commissioned the new Combined Heat & Power Plant (CHP). This project, completed in March 2020 during the first Covid peak, now saves the hospital £600k per year, and stops 2,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions every year.
Nigel led on the design and installation of the electrical connections. The CHP plant allows us to self generate 80% of the hospitals electrical needs in an energy efficient way.
The second photo was when Nigel was part of the WX Estates team that won the Team award at the Barts Heroes ceremony in 2017, in recognition of the work done to deal with a complete hospital mains power failure in summer 2016.
One Saturday, Nigel arranged the temporary power generator and organised the repair of the 11,000 volt high voltage supply cable. The hospital was supplied by the temporary mobile generator for a week, and no patient services were affected by the initial power loss nor during the repair works.
Nigel also led the £5m scheme that was completed in 2018 to completely renew the hospital’s electrical infrastructure system, and provide 100% emergency backup generator cover to the whole hospital. This was a mammoth undertaking and was planned and carried out brilliantly by Nigel liaising with the hospital clinical teams to safely transfer over from the old to the new system.
The entire hospital was renewed without any incident thanks to Nigel’s planning skills. The hospital power supplies are much improved and far safer for our patients thanks to his work. All our recent ward and theatre refurbishments connect onto the electrical infrastructure Nigel designed and installed.
Thanks to Nigel’s work the chance of a repeat of the summer 2016 complete hospital power loss are now very low, and if it did happen the whole hospital now has back up generator cover. Nigel’s last act for us was on Tuesday 17th November, overseeing the electrical power transfer in the Maternity block for the new Neonates unit, which as usual was meticulously planned and expertly delivered.
Our thoughts are with his two sons, James and Robbie. If you would like to share your condolences you can leave your message in our virtual memorial garden.