RECENT NEWS

Polyflor has unveiled Expona Flow, ‘an exciting collection’ of 50 heavy commercial sheet vinyl flooring designs.

Patients across England are set to benefit from a £250m investment in GP premises every year for the next four years, NHS England has announced.

The NHS England funding will, the organisation says, ‘deliver on the promise of a new deal for primary care, as highlighted in the NHS Five Year Forward View’. It said: “This is the first tranche of the recently announced £1billion investment to improve premises, help practices to harness technology, and give practices the space to offer more appointments and improved care for the frail elderly – essential in supporting the reduction of hospital admissions.”

At the heart of the Government’s Cost Reduction Programme is a focus on providing better and more cost-effective healthcare facilities.

Building on the success already seen in acute bedrooms and out-patient consult / exam rooms (now being adopted by three NHS Trusts), the ProCure21+ PSCPs spent much of 2014 developing Repeatable Room arrangements for mental health services.

The Kent Institute of Medicine & Surgery (KIMS) Hospital, the £120 m independent hospital on a seven-acre site near Maidstone which is Kent’s only tertiary care facility, and which opened last April (HEJ – May 2014), recently undertook what staff say was the county’s first open heart surgery procedure.

The hospital has a strong focus in areas of complex care such as cardiology, cardiothoracic surgery, and neuroscience.

BMI The London Independent Hospital has unveiled its newly enhanced intensive therapy unit (ITU).

The new department, which has undergone a £40,000 investment, will allow the hospital to expand the level of critical care it provides in London and the international healthcare market.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteria inhabit moist environments due to their ability to form ‘biofilm’.

Eastwood Park’s water hygiene tutor and lead trainer, David Harper, has been recognised for his contribution and service to water safety and combating Legionnaire’s disease.

System Hygienics has recently completed remedial work to ductwork at the Princess Royal University Hospital in Bromley, Kent, following a fire damper testing programme – modifying fire and smoke dampers and nearby ductwork and access arrangements to ensure compliance with the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 and HTM 03-01

The Fire Door Inspection Scheme (FDIS) has introduced two new developments that it says ‘make it easier for people to undertake this recognised qualification that helps estates managers to become more aware of their fire door responsibilities and their duties under the Regulatory Reform Order’

A ‘large proportion’ of hospitals may be at risk of non-compliance with BS 72734, without being aware, warns Siemens Building Technologies Fire Products.

Failure to test and maintain fire prevention components in ducting can have serious consequences, ventilation maintenance and duct cleaning specialist, Ductbusters, warns.

The Fire Protection Association (the FPA) promotes fire safety within the industry, commerce, and the wider public.

An upgrade of the fire detection system at London’s Eastman Dental Hospital has seen Apollo selected as the technology provider by Fisk Fire Group, the company appointed to supply and install the system to protect the site’s staff, patients, and property.

ADT Fire & Security has upgraded the fire detection system at Chapel Allerton Hospital, in the north of Leeds, from an analogue to a digital addressable system – with addressable smoke and heat multi-sensors, manual call points, addressable interface modules, and a PC-based emergency management system and digital repeater panels installed throughout the site.

BAFE, the independent, third-party certification registration organisation for the fire protection industry, is supporting what it dubs ‘a valuable Scottish research initiative’ into the causes of false alarms from fire alarm systems which it believes should provide valuable information for the entire UK.

Fairfield General Hospital, in Bury, Greater Manchester, is set to cut its annual carbon emissions by some 700 tonnes thanks to the installation of a new CHP unit supplied and commissioned by Cogenco.

Brandon Medical has achieved a ‘Highly commended’ in the Building Better Healthcare Awards 2014. The company’s new operating theatre light, the Quasar eLite (HEJ – May 2014), was commended ‘for a unique set of features which vastly improve user experience over existing offerings’.

Figures recently released by Barbour ABI, ‘chosen provider’ of construction data to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the Government, reveal that more than £81 billion worth of renewable energy projects are proposed by 2025, representing nearly half of all infrastructure spending in the UK.

Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust has chosen to partner with Sodexo for its cleaning, portering, retail, and private patient services, across its five hospitals in London – Queen Charlotte’s & Chelsea Hospital; Hammersmith Hospital; Charing Cross Hospital; St Mary’s Hospital, and the Western Eye Hospital

BSI has revised the PAS 5748 ‘Specification for the planning, application and measurement of cleanliness services in hospitals’.