RECENT NEWS

BeaconMedæs and Addmaster have combined their expertise to launch what they say is the UK’s first medical gas terminal unit to offer inherent antimicrobial protection as standard.

The Heating and Ventilating Contractors Association (HVCA) has appointed Blane Judd as its chief executive designate. The post was created following the decision of current chief executive Robert Higgs OBE to retire at the Association’s AGM on 21 July this year (HEJ – April 2011).

Recent questioning of 21 buyers from public sector-funded healthcare organisations on changing attitudes to procurement since last autumn’s Comprehensive Spending Review reveals that, although under half have had to cancel construction work, a third plan abandoning framework arrangements in a bid to cut costs, and 40 per cent plan asking contractors to cut prices.

Engineering consultancy Henderson Green, which specialises in renewable technologies, has designed services including heat recovery ventilation, industrial laboratory gases, and laboratory and office variable refrigerant flow comfort cooling, for a £6.3 million extension to the Southampton Centre for Biomedical Research at Southampton General Hospital.

British asbestos campaigners have launched a national survey exploring general awareness and understanding of asbestos in buildings, and the regulations designed to protect UK workers from exposure to it.

The Thermostatic Mixing Valve Manufacturers’ Association (TMVA) has successfully secured the inclusion of “Severe Scalding of Patients” in the expanded list of “Never events” recently published by the Department of Health.

EMSc Powerstar says the Mersey Care NHS Trust has reduced electricity consumption at a number of its hospital sites by nearly a fifth after installing the company’s Powerstar voltage optimisation system.

Britspace has completed what is reportedly the UK’s largest off-site built hospital extension to date. The five-storey, 9,000 m2 extension at Sunderland Royal Hospital, comprising ward blocks and an integrated critical care unit (ICCU), increases patient capacity from 970 to 1,108.

Construction work has begun at Leicester’s Glenfield Hospital on a new £12.6 million University of Leicester Cardiovascular Research Centre that will double the amount of space available there for world-class heart research.

HNC and HND construction course students from Bradford College were recently afforded a taste of construction site life when main contractor ISG gave them a guided tour of the £5.5 million School of Health Studies development at the University of Bradford.

Upgraded pathology laboratories at Kettering General Hospital have been equipped with Marshall-Tufflex’s all-curved Odyssey Bio antimicrobial cable containment system to enhance infection control within the hospital’s sterile services section.

Work-based training provider Employer Training Solutions, part of Westminster Kingsway College, has been awarded accreditation from the British Institute of Facilities Management as a recognised centre in providing advanced level training for the FM industry.

Greg Pilbrow, who holds a BSc in biochemistry/biotechnology, and has over 20 years’ experience in the healthcare and life science sector, most recently with Berchtold UK and Steris,

Atlas Copco, which already has a major UK presence in the field through Derbyshire-based BeaconMedaes, has agreed to acquire the Medical Gas Solutions business of Abingdonheadquartered Penlon – which supplies medical gas systems, medical vacuum equipment, and pipeline components to hospitals – subject to competition authority clearance.

Over a decade after a partnership between Northumberland’s’s Hexham General Hospital and the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre (KCMC) in Tanzania was launched with a vision to revolutionise healthcare delivery to the Tanzanian people.

IHEEM members will be eligible for the same discounted rate as IMechE members at a seminar being staged by the latter at its London offices on 18 May (which the Institute is supporting) that will examine all aspects of water collection, storage, distribution, and use, including the challenges of growing future demand, and the implications for health and healthcare as resources become scarcer.

The Institute has recently published a new brochure setting out, and answering, over six pages of clear information, what it says are the two most common questions asked by members: “What is IHEEM?”, and “What can my membership do for me?”

By the time this issue of HEJ reaches them members should also have received, by post, an “IHEEM Awards 2011” booklet describing the current “stable” of five IHEEM annual Awards, Medals, and Prizes, outlining the background to, eligibility criteria for, and purpose of, each, and detailing the nomination and selection process for this year’s Awards, which will be presented at the annual IHEEM Conference in November.

The new IHEEM website, launched in October last year, is proving to be a considerable success. The 20th of April marked six months since the website was re-launched, and the Institute’s “webmaster”, Danielle Silman, says that, in that period, the site welcomed over 8,000 unique visitors from more than 100 different countries, who collectively made over 15,600 “visits” to the site.

November’s IHEEM Healthcare Estates 2011 conference and exhibition at Manchester Central will, it is planned, see the BRE and the University College London Hospitals (UCLH) NHS Foundation Trust jointly launch a new Sustainability Portal.