RECENT NEWS

Lightning-fast Legionella detection
UK hospitals and health facilities can now benefit from detection of Legionella “ten times faster than before”, via a rapid detection process known as Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) now being offered by environmental analysis organisation ALcontrol Laboratories.
Efficiency at its heart
Agfa HealthCare has been selected by Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Trust to provide PACS (Picture Archiving & Communication System), RIS (Radiology Information System) and Cardiology IT “solutions” to “transform the Trust’s information workflow” by enabling a “completely free data flow” between the Royal Brompton and Harefield hospitals, despite the fact that each facility’s system will work independently of the other.
Welsh acute hospital can continue operating
Welsh Minister for Health & Social Services Edwina Hart has said a large North Wales district acute hospital that does not meet current fire safety standards can continue being used, subject to interim measures, but hospital bosses say much of a central 1970s-built ward block needs rebuilding at an estimated £270 million cost.
Galliford Try wins three-year ISTC deal
Galliford Try Facilities Management has won a three-year contract to provide hard facilities management services for independent sector treatment centres (ISTCs) on behalf of Circle, which claims to be the UK’s largest partnership of healthcare professionals.
Bringing a ‘leaner’ approach
Two individuals who have studied “lean healthcare” provision in Japan, subsequently successfully applying the key principles at a $650 million Seattle tertiary healthcare centre, are joining Manchester’s Manufacturing Institute to apply the “best practice lean methodologies” they say have “revolutionised” the US healthcare industry to UK hospitals.
Work starts in Kent on UK’s first ‘100% single-bed’ large acute hospital
The Department of Health and HM Treasury recently gave the final sign-off for building to start of the new £225 million PFI-funded hospital at Pembury near Tunbridge Wells, Kent, set to be the UK’s first large acute hospital with 100% single in-patient rooms.
Perfect prescription for GP assessment centre
UK office interior design and fit-out specialist Area Sq has transformed the existing Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) assessment centre in Croydon, reportedly the only UK facility that allows assessments of GPs to be undertaken in a realistic environment, into “a pioneering facility” in just 12 weeks.
Copper’s anti-microbial abilities verified
Southampton University scientists, whose similar research into the metal’s ability to inactivate MRSA led to an ongoing trial at Birmingham’s Selly Oak Hospital, have established that copper surfaces can also inactivate the Clostridium difficile organism.
Sustainable building centre nears completion
Health service specifiers will be among the first visitors when Wolseley’s new £3 m Sustainable Building Center (SBC), currently nearing completion by Warwick-based contractor Sol Construction at the company’s Leamington Spa headquarters, opens in June.
News in brief
The British Fire Consortium (BFC) has launched a website detailing the offerings of 250 member providers of fire risk consultancy, extinguisher supply, installation and maintenance, fire alarms and domestic and residential sprinkler systems.
News in brief
Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has shown the first visitors around its new critical care unit at the city’s Northern General Hospital, said to be Europe’s only one of its kind (Health Estate Journal, April 2008).
News in brief
Private equity specialist Graphite Capital has sold medical device designer, producer and distributor Summit Medical to global private equity firm The Riverside Company.
News in brief
The Welsh Assembly Government has approved funding for a 1,493 m2 primary care centre to replace the current GP practice building on Kinmel Avenue, Abergele, North Wales.
News in brief
Speakers from Government health departments and other key sector bodies representing England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland will describe how each country is tackling hospital cleaning at the Association of Healthcare Cleaning Professionals’ (AHCP) 33rd Annual Healthcare Cleaning & Domestic Management event in Harrogate from 11-13 June.
Playing a part in tackling climate change
The Department of Health last month issued “climate change guidance documents” whose aim it said was to encourage health sector workers, including health estates and facilities managers and healthcare engineers, to “play their part in tackling the health effects of climate change”.
PCT strongly criticised by Information Commissioner over FOI breaches
At a time when estates and facilities managers are taking increasing responsibility for sensitive information (see article page 51), the Information Commissioner has strongly criticised Hounslow Primary Care Trust for non-compliance with the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act by “failing to respond adequately” to an individual’s request for information about his late father-in-law’s care in a nursing home.
Heart of glass scoops The Arches second award
A Belfast health centre incorporating Technal architectural aluminium glazing systems has won its second architectural award.
Hounslow PCT strongly criticised over FOI breaches
At a time when estates and facilities managers are taking increasing responsibility for sensitive information, the Information Commissioner has strongly criticised Hounslow Primary Care Trust for non-compliance with the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act by “failing to respond adequately” to an individual’s request for information about his late father-in-law’s care in a nursing home.
Ukraine to have pioneering children’s hospital
Following a competition win in late 2007 against seven competitors from the UK, Germany, Holland, Italy, the Ukraine and the US, bdpgroupe6, an architectural practice with offices in London, Paris and Dublin that undertakes international healthcare commissions, has been appointed to design a 250-bed children’s hospital on a 10 hectare suite near Kiev in the Ukraine.
Weighing safety spotlighted
Council trading standards chiefs across the UK are launching a oneyear long nationwide project this month to identify inaccurate hospital weighing scales they say could put patients’ lives at risk.
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FEATURE ARTICLE

Data security: keeping a lid on Pandora’s box
Following recent, high profile cases of public bodies “mislaying” sensitive information, Health Estate Journal considers the data security implications of increasing migration of patient and staff records to a central electronic NHS database, and examines the key issues for those responsible for maintaining such data safely and securely in hospitals and other care environments.

PRODUCT ARTICLE

Doors improve infection control
Besam is installing thirty automatic door systems for Hinchingbrooke Healthcare NHS Trust at Hinchingbrooke Hospital, Huntingdon as part of a £2.5 million ongoing refurbishment of six wards.
SGB Rovacabin