Three microbiologists and a highly experienced EFM professional argue that ensuring patient safety in new healthcare facilities requires a markedly different approach to design and construction.

Giving the opening keynote on the first day of IHEEM’s Wales Regional Conference in Cardiff in May, Judith Paget CBE, Director General of Health and Social Services, and CEO, NHS Wales, discussed ‘what Wales’s future healthcare estate needs to look like’, and some of the challenges and opportunities for EFM personnel working at the country’s NHS Health Boards and Trusts. HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie, reports.

Unite, one of Britain’s leading trade unions, has called on all NHS organisations to urgently establish a risk register for reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) that may have been used in buildings across the NHS estate.

Nearly 250 guests from across the healthcare engineering, estate management, and healthcare construction sectors gathered in the Augusta Suite at the Celtic Manor Golf Club on 7 May for a Gala Awards Dinner on the first night of the IHEEM Wales Regional Conference and Exhibition 2025, held at the Celtic Manor Resort Hotel near Newport. There, as HEJ’s editor, Jonathan Baillie, reports, they were able to network, witness the presentation of seven awards, hear about the work of local children’s charity, Sparkle, and enjoy a wry and retrospective after-dinner speech by Sir Gareth Edwards CBE, arguably Wales’s greatest ever rugby scrum-half.

Addressing delegates from across the healthcare engineering and estate management sector in a morning keynote at the IHEEM Wales Regional Conference at the ICC Wales in May, Stuart Douglas, Director of NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership – Specialist Estates Services, focused on some of the key priorities to ensure that Wales has a fit-for-purpose healthcare estate. Areas covered included the need to make the optimal use of under- or unused buildings and land, the challenges of reaching Net Zero, and some of the existing and emerging tools for better managing the over two million square metres of space that currently make up the country’s NHS estate.

Giving the opening keynote speech remotely at the 2025 IHEEM Wales Regional Conference at the ICC Wales in May, Judith Paget CBE, Director General for Health and Social Services and NHS Wales Chief Executive, reflected on some of the key challenges for the NHS estate in Wales – including an ageing estate, a significant maintenance backlog, and the need to prioritise where limited capital funding is invested. With avoidable safety incidents still occurring across the NHS, it was also vital – she said – that compliance risks were managed and mitigated against.

In HEJ’s May issue we reported on the first ‘half’ of a lively two-and-ahalf- hour roundtable discussion jointly staged by IHEEM and building and engineering services association, the B&ES, in London.

Vanguard Healthcare, ‘popularly known as the world’s leading provider of pop-up hospitals’, will showcase ‘international best practice’ at the 2014 Health Estates and Facilities Management (HefmA) National Conference and exhibition at the Brighton Metropole Hotel (15 and 16 May).

The conference programme for the 23rd IFHE World Congress, to be held at the UCA University in Puerto Madero, Buenos Aires, from 12-16 October this year (HEJ – February, May, and August 2013, and February 2014), is an extremely varied and topical one.

Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust’s ‘ground-breaking’, web-based audio-visual link with Tanzania’s Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre (KCMC) (HEJ – January and May 2011) has won the British Medical Journal (BMJ) 2014 Karen Woo Surgical Team Award – 15 years after the link was set up.

Potential speakers for the 23rd IFHE World Congress, which will be held at the UCA University in Puerto Madero, Buenos Aires, from 12-16 October this year (HEJ – February, May, and August 2013), are reminded that abstracts must be received, via the online submission form on the IFHE website (www.ifhe2014buenosaires.com.ar/ papers.htm), by no later than 27 March.

Following ‘extremely positive feedback’ from the 2013 event, this year’s EBME Seminar, on 1 May, will again be held at the Milton Keynes Double Tree Hilton Hotel – a luxury conference venue integrated into the west stand of the MK Dons stadium.

Powertecnique has gained accreditation for five UPS (uninterruptible power supply) units from its eKasar range from the Government’s Energy Technology List (ETL) through the Carbon Trust, meaning customers may claim additional tax relief through enhanced capital allowances when purchasing the equipment.

Step Exhibitions, organisers of IHEEM’s Healthcare Estates 2014 conference and exhibition in Manchester (7-8 October at Manchester Central), have released details on a programme of topical conference/seminar events (HEJ – March 2014) taking place during May to complement the conference – on topics including water quality and safety, medical device compliance, and sustainability.

Andy Wavell, IHEEM’s IFHE representative, and the commissioning editor of the annual IFHE Digest, is calling on potential contributors of articles for the 2015 IFHE Digest to supply him with synopses of around 200 words by 23 May this year; the deadline for completed articles will be 11 July 2014.

Doncaster-based Intastop – a leading manufacturer of door and wall protection products – will showcase a wide range of anti-ligature solutions at the 'Design in Mental Health' exhibition, which is being held at the National Motorcycle Museum, near Solihull, from 12-14 May this year.

Providing an effective healing environment for patients facing a wide range of mental health issues, while balancing their needs with security, safety, and affordability considerations, will be key area of focus at this year’s Design in Mental Health (DIMH) conference and exhibition, taking place from 13-14 May at the National Motorcycle Museum in Bickenhill near Solihull.

Keith Hamer, an asset management system specialist, currently group vice-president, Asset Management and Engineering, at Sodexo, and Kevin Main, marketing director at asset management solutions learning consultancy, Asset Wisdom, look at an important new international asset management standard, launched earlier this year, that they believe many in the healthcare estates and facilities management community managers may, as yet, have little, if any, knowledge of.

Environmental control specialist, RVT Rentavent, warns those managing capital projects or refurbishment programmes in hospitals that Aspergillus spores released during building work can be a danger to patients, whose resistance to infection may be low.

Professional body for facilities management, BIFM, has opened delegate bookings for its 2015 ThinkFM conference, to be held on 13 May this year at Kings Place, London, and to again be hosted by Daisy McAndrew, former economics editor for ITV News.