FEATURE ARTICLES

Bristan claims to be the UK’s largest supplier of bathroom and kitchen taps, and the second largest of mixer showers. With the launch, early in July 2011, as part of a major re-branding exercise, of ‘a tailored collection’ of taps, showers, and accessories, for commercial and public sector applications that brought together its own products with those from Sirrus by Gummers, the company is now targeting healthcare more seriously than ever before.

Thirty-one years after its establishment in a small office in Wigan, independent life safety equipment manufacturer, C-TEC, has moved into a new 75,000 ft2 factory, ‘the size of three football pitches’, marking the start of what founder and MD, Andrew Foster, dubs ‘the next phase in our exciting development’.

As the new NHS landscape’s structures, policies, and future strategic direction, begin to come more into focus, and the hiatus caused by the Health and Social Care Act’s passage through the various parliamentary stages to become law, begins to quieten, ‘surviving and thriving in this emerging new world’ will be a major theme underpinning next month’s IHEEM Healthcare Estates 2012 annual conference and exhibition in Manchester.

Dr Claire Holman, Principal at ENVIRON, a global consultancy which works with clients ‘to manage their most challenging environmental and health and safety issues, and attain their sustainability goals’, considers the impacts on health of dust released during demolition work, and the measures that can be taken to mitigate them.

Phil Green, senior project engineer at independent building services company, Shepherd Engineering Services (SES), describes SES’s creation a new ‘state-of-the-art’, £4.5 million, high dependency unit (HDU) at The James Cook University Hospital, Middlesbrough.

Roger Humphreys, managing director of Charter Specialist Security, a specialist supplier of ’built-in’ roller shutters, argues that, with the ability to be effectively ‘integrated’ into the fabric of a building, and availability in a wide range of ‘exciting’ colours and finishes, modern security shutter systems are a world away from the ‘often ugly and purely functional’ designs many will immediately picture when they consider using such items to protect their properties and their contents against attack.

Alex Krasnic BEng MSc MIOA, senior acoustician at ZBP Acoustics, the acoustics division of consulting engineer, Zisman Bowyer & Partners, explores practical steps towards achieving ‘the quiet hospital’ without compromising other design elements, while also recognising that acoustic design features can sometimes be seen to conflict with certain healthcare protocols.

According to steam system specialist, Spirax Sarco, ‘condensate contains about a quarter of the energy of the steam from which it came – a significant amount of heat available to an energy centre’.

Speaking at a recent IHEEM seminar focusing on some of the key water hygiene and safety, and waterborne infection prevention issues, facing healthcare estates/ engineering personnel responsible for ‘large, complex’ water systems.

Next month’s Healthcare Estates conference and exhibition will see a new IHEEM President take up the reins, as Greg Markham, BEng (Hons) CEng FIHEEM MIET MBIFM, unusual in being one of very few private sector employees to have taken on the role (he is currently technical services director at G4S Integrated Services [UK]), succeeds Paul Kingsmore.

Hospitals and other healthcare facilities that do not regularly inspect, monitor, and, if necessary, clean, both their general ventilation ductwork and ‘often forgotten’ kitchen grease extract systems could not only be putting occupants’ health, and even lives, at risk, but could also face heavy financial penalties, significant damage to buildings, and even prosecution, a leading ductwork cleaning specialist has warned.

Getting new, and often heavy, medical equipment, such as MRI and CT scanners, into busy working hospitals, is often highly challenging – from a structural, mechanical, electrical, and logistical standpoint.

According to Stephen Lloyd, lead facilities management (FM) tutor at Gloucestershire-based training provider, Eastwood Park, ‘a combined 150 years’ invaluable estates experience has just disappeared from one hospital in the past month’, and, as many experienced healthcare estates personnel retire, and the sector struggles to attract replacements, the situation is being replicated in many hospitals UK-wide.

In an article that first appeared in US magazine, Medical Construction & Design, Mark Howell, senior vice-president of Skanska USA Building, based in Seattle, describes the design and construction of a new nine-storey, 350,000 ft2 extension to the Good Samaritan Hospital in Puyallup, Washington state.

In an article which first appeared in print in the March 2012 issue of The Australian Hospital Engineer, based on a presentation given at the Institute of Hospital Engineering Australia’s 2009 National Conference, Scott Wells, energy manager, Engineering & Building Services, at Royal Brisbane Women’s Hospital, and Mark Collen, a district account manager, Engineering and Process Development Division, at water treatment specialist, Nalco, discuss how sound, regular, and thorough, maintenance and cleaning of hospital air-handing units will not only enhance their operating efficiency, but will also help reduce airborne infection risk in the healthcare facilities they serve.

Susan Pearson BSc reports on a recent specialist waterborne diseases ‘masterclass’ held in Nottingham, at which leading experts discussed not only the control of Pseudomonas, but also other problematic waterborne pathogens such as Legionella, the cause of Legionnaires‘ disease.

Peter Jennings, technical director for ACO Building Drainage, which specialises in the development of corrosion-resistant drainage systems and building products, looks at the key issues to consider when specifying and installing pipework and drainage for hygiene-critical environments such as hospitals and other healthcare facilities.

HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie, reports on some of the key advances in large capital equipment for the operating theatre. Here, he discovered, major drivers include continuing growth in the use of laparoscopic and endoscopic surgery, increasing demand for the ability to share and stream ‘live’ audio and video footage of innovative surgical techniques to other locations to improve skills and boost training, and a general desire to improve efficiency, ergonomics, and patient flow.

Turnkey construction company, MTX Contracts, has recently completed a suite of five ‘modern and future-proofed’ operating theatres at the Ysbyty Glan Clwyd in Bodelwyddan, Denbighshire, in the first phase of a 90-phase, £89.9 million redevelopment of facilities at the North Wales hospital being undertaken by Laing O’Rourke for the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board.

Established in 2005 on a 78-acre site near Watford by a research-based consultancy, testing, and training organisation with a reputation for independence and impartiality, the BRE’s Watford Innovation Park is today home to a broad range of research, consultancy, and testing activities, for the built environment.