The first UK installation at Birmingham Children’s Hospital demonstrates the technology’s potential and encourages wider NHS adoption across theatres and clinical spaces.
A first UK installation of smart occupancy-based control technology has been completed in an emergency operating theatre at Birmingham Children’s Hospital, as part of efforts to improve theatre energy efficiency while maintaining critical ventilation standards.
adi Intelligent Buildings delivered the first UK installation of the system, demonstrating how real‑time occupancy data can support smarter, more efficient theatre control across the wider NHS estate.
A new approach to theatre ventilation and energy performance
Emergency theatres are maintained in a permanent operational state, with air handling units and plant often running continuously to ensure clinical safety. This constant operation, however, results in elevated energy consumption and higher running costs.
Working with the hospital’s estates and engineering teams, adi Intelligent Buildings implemented Distech Controls’ Resense Move technology – originally developed for commercial environments and adapted to support healthcare use. Leveraging AI‑powered thermal sensing, the solution goes beyond basic presence detection by identifying real‑time occupancy levels through people counting, while respecting occupant privacy. This additional level of insight supports the Building Management System (BMS) in responding more precisely to space usage, helping inform when full theatre conditions may be required and enabling more adaptive environmental control.
“All the data from the device feeds directly into the BMS,” said Martyn Turner, Account Manager at adi Intelligent Buildings. “When we demonstrated the accuracy of the occupancy readings, the estates team immediately saw the potential for improving both energy performance and operational control.”
Supporting HTM compliance and NHS Net Zero goals
The solution has been configured to support the hospital’s ventilation strategy, ensuring that safety‑critical air change rates and pressure regimes are maintained whenever the theatre is occupied or preparing for use.
When the theatre is unoccupied, the system enables a controlled reduction in plant operation, helping the Trust reduce unnecessary energy consumption while maintaining clinical safety.
The theatre is now fully operational, and the control strategy has been designed with long‑term efficiency and return on investment in mind. Early modelling indicates the potential for significant reductions in energy demand, with projected savings of 35,000 KWh per annum (96 KWh per day) across theatres operating continuous ventilation regimes.
Ensuring systems are ready for ‘Smart Control’
For occupancy-based control to be effective, hospitals must first ensure that existing building management systems, field devices and control networks are operating reliably. Across many NHS estates, ageing systems, legacy plant and limited network capacity can restrict the impact of newer optimisation technologies.
This makes infrastructure readiness an important consideration for Trusts looking to adopt more adaptive control strategies. In high-demand plant areas, such as fans and pumps, live performance data and condition-based monitoring can also help estates teams identify potential issues earlier and support more targeted maintenance, as well as improve the overall performance of building management systems.
“Before introducing any advanced control strategy, it’s essential to understand the condition of the existing infrastructure,” Martyn added. “We often find that older controllers, outdated firmware or network bottlenecks are the root cause of poor performance. Addressing these issues first ensures Trusts can get the full benefit of smart occupancy‑based control.”
Scalable across theatres and wider clinical environments
adi Intelligent Buildings is now working with the Trust to assess opportunities to apply the technology across additional theatres at Birmingham Children’s Hospital and Birmingham Women’s Hospital. The same occupancy‑driven approach can also be configured for wards, treatment rooms and other clinical areas where ventilation demand, air quality and energy use vary throughout the day.
The company is also encouraging NHS estates, capital and sustainability teams to evaluate how occupancy‑based control – supported by robust maintenance, infrastructure readiness checks and BMS optimisation – can enhance theatre performance, strengthen HTM compliance and contribute to Net Zero objectives across the wider healthcare estate.
