RECENT NEWS

IHEEM and specialist healthcare training provider, Eastwood Park, announced at last month’s Healthcare Estates show the launch of a ‘new and refreshed’ Authorising Engineers’ development programme.

The Government is ‘in serious danger of killing off the air conditioning inspection regime’, claims Bob Towse, head of technical and safety at the Building & Engineering Services Association (B&ES).

Lighting in the NHS is often over five years’ old, on 24 hours a day, and based on inefficient technology. However, now LEDs and smart controls can deliver dramatic energy savings – while improving the environment for staff and patients alike.’

NHS Trusts and healthcare organisations from across England assembled in London on 17 October to witness the official launch of NHS Sustainability Day 2014, which IHEEM is supporting, and for which Health Estate Journal is the official media partner.

The last general survey of the IHEEM membership took place in summer 2008, and went some way to setting the Institute’s strategy for the period since that time, the Institute’s recruitment and membership manager, Chris Parker, reports.

The Institute, following a recent review of Membership categories, is embarking upon a programme to introduce some new categories.

An event last month at London’s Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE) saw 19 more professional engineering institutions, including IHEEM, sign up to the Engineering Diversity Concordat, ‘committing to address the gender, ethnicity, and disability gap, affecting the profession’.

IHEEMs Medical Devices Advisory Group (MDAG), chaired by David Easton MSc CEng FIHEEM MIET, recently provided the MHRA with comments and raised issues to be considered for the update of the Device Bulletin ‘Managing Medical Devices 2006(5)’.

On November 12 this year IHEEM will be formally celebrating the Institute’s 70th Anniversary with two high profile events – a technical symposium at the Institution of Civil Engineers in London, and a lunch at the House of Lords. IHEEM President, Greg Markham, will chair the symposium, ‘Healthcare Estates 2020 – challenges and solutions’.

This year’s Healthcare Estates event takes place in Manchester on 8 and 9 October, and already record numbers have registered to attend.

A planning application for a new ‘stateof- the-art’ training centre at Eastwood Park in Falfield, South Gloucestershire has been granted, ‘after four years of investment, planning, reviews, surveys and detailed development work’, the directors of the independent healthcare training business have announced.

One of Maquet Hospital Solutions’ most recent projects has seen it deliver a new operating theatre for surgeons working at the University Hospital of Southampton.

A team of cleaning and maintenance operatives from FM and cleaning specialist, In Depth Managed Services, is keeping Crewe’s Eagle Bridge Health and Wellbeing Centre ‘spotless and in full working order’, adapting the frequency, method, and monitoring, of cleaning, based on the risk to patient safety posed by potential infections.

Hospitals in England score on average ‘around eight out of 10’ for non-clinical services such as catering and the condition of buildings, fixtures, and fittings, according to the first ever results from the new patient-led assessment programme, PLACE (Patient-Led Assessments of the Care Environment).

Healthcare estates personnel responsible for the safe management of water systems and Legionella management need to ensure that they are compliant with the new Approved Code of Practice & Technical Guidance.

In larger buildings, such as hospitals, offices, and schools, with multiple handwashing, drinking, bathroom, or kitchen facilities to provide for, effective heating, safe storage, and hygienic delivery, of hot water become key issues.

The annual gathering of like-minded individuals within healthcare engineering and estate management is nearly upon us once again, and I urge you to invest your time to attend IHEEM’s flagship event.

IHEEM is seeking candidates to contribute to its Specialist Engineering Advisory Group, which aims ‘to provide information and guidance for members, and advise on matters of special interest as they arise’, including via promoting and supporting the production of technical papers, which can be printed in HEJ.

Sunray Engineering’s ExcluLouvre is a LPCB securityrated stackable louvre system that has just received full SR3 security accreditation to LPS 1175 issue 7.

PHS Datashred, the confidential data destruction division of the £422 million PHS Group, has continued its national expansion by purchasing Bettershred, a ‘10-year old’, £250,000 turnover, Milton Keynes-based mobile document shredding business, with over 900 clients.