L W Michael Arrowsmith BSc(Hons) CEng FIMechE FIHEEM, Health Estate Journal technical editor, describes issues concerning Health Technical Memorandum 02 (HTM 02), the medical gas pipeline guidance developed to replace HTM 2022

As methods of decontaminating equipment used for gastrointestinal endoscopy continue to be closely scrutinised, Health Estate Journal summarises the latest British Society of Gastroenterology guidelines.

The British Society of Gastroenterology (BSG) guidelines on decontamination of equipment for gastrointestinal endoscopy have been updated.

The Royal Academy of Engineering has led a concerted effort to reach agreement on the high-level ethical principles it believes all professional engineers and related bodies should subscribe to. It has also suggested how ethics should be incorporated within the curriculum of undergraduate engineering courses. Anthony Eades, the manager of Engineering Projects at the Academy, introduces these initiatives.

Neville Mitchell, managing director of Thermal Detection, examines issues relating to accurate temperature measurement with medical autoclaves.

The first decontamination processing experience of utilising radio frequency identification tags hermetically sealed in metal cases is described by Graham Cox, decontamination and sterile services manager, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.

To significantly reduce healthcare-acquired infections in the NHS, more collaborative working is needed, and greater attention given to basic procedures. This became clear at the Hospital Hygiene conference held recently at ExCeL, London, as Nicholas Marshall and Jason Rayfield report.

Driving forward major reductions in healthcare-acquired infections in the NHS is a task needing scrupulous attention given to key factors such as hand hygiene and the cleaning of surfaces likely to be contaminated, the Hospital Hygiene conference heard.

Bill Moffitt, UK operations manager for TBS G.B. Telematic & Biomedical Services, provides an insight into how vital biomedical engineering and telemedicine services are moving forward.

Preventative maintenance of biomedical equipment is increasing in importance.

Last month’s HEJ saw editor, Jonathan Baillie, report on ‘the first half’ of a recent roundtable debate staged jointly in London by IHEEM and multidisciplinary engineering consultancy, Crofton Design.

Replacing a healthcare facility first opened in 1908 as a 20-bed cottage hospital, the recently opened ‘new’ Finchley Memorial Hospital in north-west London was designed by architects, Murphy Philipps, ‘to be at the heart of a health campus’, surrounded by green space for use by both the hospital itself, and the local community.

With IHEEM celebrating its 70th Anniversary this month, HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie, recently met the Institute’s oldest surviving Past-President, Lawrence Turner OBE.

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.

In an article that first appeared in the The Australian Hospital Engineer, the monthly magazine of the Institute of Hospital Engineering Australia, Arup’s Dr Gerard Healey examines the design and construction of a new intensive care unit (ICU) at Melbourne’s Alfred Hospital in Victoria, Australia.

The key responsibilities associated with reducing asbestos risk in healthcare buildings explained by an expert in the field.

A focus on a £520,000 project by integrated architectural, property, and construction company, Pellings, to refurbish the Danesbury Neurological Centre in Welwyn.

This autumn will see the opening of the new Alder Hey in the Park hospital in Liverpool – believed to be Europe’s first children’s hospital to be constructed within a parkland setting.

Catherine Zeliotis, a senior architect and healthcare leader at Stantec, and the lead clinical designer for the new Cancer Centre at Guy’s Hospital in London, describes both the company’s key design philosophies, and how it overcame a number of challenging practical issues – including not displacing the remains of a buried Roman boat found on the site – to create the blueprint for what the practice, and indeed all the project participants, believe will be a ground-breaking new cancer treatment complex.

In an article first published in the Spring 2015 issue of Canadian Healthcare Facilities, the magazine’s editor, Clare Tattersall, describes a project which is seeing undertaken one of the largest healthcare redevelopments in Ontario, as the new ‘campus-style’ 457 inpatient-bedded Oakville Hospital takes shape prior to a scheduled opening later this year.

In this article, the third in a series on the new ISO 55000 asset management standards (see also HEJ – October 2014 and February 2015), Kevin Main, marketing director for asset management solutions learning consultancy, Asset Wisdom, and June Lancaster, a learning expert with years of experience of learning in the healthcare sector, describe “how the asset management challenge calls on facilities management companies and other suppliers to the healthcare sector to become ‘learning organisations’”, and how this has been achieved by Sodexo, ‘and can be done by others’.

Delegates at an IHEEM waste seminar heard about a new system for processing permitted categories of clinical waste on site, with the NHS’s first installation set for next Spring.

A flooring specialist describes how a range of its products were chosen for use in two adjoining new hospitals in Singapore that form a S$1 bn care ‘cluster’ for the west of the city-state.