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’.

Visitors to this month’s Healthcare Estates 2016 show in Manchester will be able to pick up a copy of a special Reader Survey Report detailing the results of a survey launched by IHEEM and Wandsworth Healthcare in HEJ in May

Health Technical Memorandum 04-01, Safe water in healthcare premises Part A: Design, installation and commissioning, recognises that Pseudomonas aeruginosa may be transferred to and from mixers and taps by patients and staff in healthcare facilities.

Stanley Guard is a new personal security ‘app’ from Stanley Security designed to help protect staff or other individuals who may be at risk and do not carry an on-site alarm mobile device.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is commonly found in water pipes, and is generally tolerated by healthy people, but poses particular risks for or vulnerable individuals who may be immunocompromised within hospitals, such as the elderly, cancer patients, people in burns units, and infants.

Few beds, one would imagine, could withstand three-quarters of a ton landing on them, but this was the challenge successfully met by a box bed from a furniture manufacturer for challenging behaviour environments, Tough Furniture, when, to reassure a customer that the bed could accommodate 30-stone patients, 13 of the company’s staff jumped repeatedly on it to ensure that it would survive intact in a real-world setting. Such testing may seem extreme, but is vital, since much of the company’s furniture is destined for environments where patients will abuse, and indeed attempt to destroy, components.

Independent consultant to the healthcare sector, Dr Melvyn Langford, outlines his concerns that, in many cases, the emergency diesel generators so critical to the resilience and uninterrupted operation of clinical and other functions within healthcare facilities may not be performing to reliability levels set out in guidance and codes of practice, and sets out recommendations to reduce the risk of breakdown, necessitating, he argues, a multi-disciplinary approach.

On 11 May the first patient was treated within a mobile operating theatre at the Alexandra Hospital, Redditch, supplied by Vanguard Healthcare, ‘to assist the Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust in increasing patient access and reducing the risk of cancelling operations’.

A new Pegler Yorkshire antimicrobial copper hospital mixer tap has been designed in line with Health Protection Agency (HPA) recommendations, following the Agency’s investigation last year into Pseudomonas aeruginosa on biofilms in water tap assemblies from Northern Irish neonatal units (HEJ – May and June 2012).

Betts Environmental, a specialist in in precious metals recovery, claims that many NHS Trusts currently lack the resources to effectively dispose of X-ray films in compliance with the Data Protection Act and that, consequently, they may be missing out on potentially lucrative revenue.

‘Every defect is a treasure, if the company can uncover its cause and work to prevent it across the corporation’ – Kiichiro Toyoda, founder, Toyota. This quote, as true in healthcare as it in the manufacturing sphere, set the tone for discussion at a recent Dublin conference, which examined the thorny issue of whether compliance is really enough to ensure safety.

Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust, which has worked with the company since 2006, has extended by two years its relationship with international ‘total facilities management provider’, OCS.

IHEEM and Health Estate Journal will be supporting ‘Design in Mental Health’, a new networking event being held from 14-15 May at Birmingham’s National Motorcycle Museum linking those who design, construct, and manage, mental healthcare facilities, with end-users.

An extensive range of ‘standard’ and bespoke anti-ligature products ‘for environments where people may be at risk to themselves or others’, including door and window furniture, lighting, plumbing, washroom products, ventilation grilles, security screws and fixings, and dispensers, is offered by the Anti-Ligature Shop.

Over 25 international articles have been received for the 2014 IFHE Digest, after a call for article synopses was made in the last (May 2013) ‘IFHE’ edition of Health Estate Journal, writes Andy Wavell, IHEEM’s IFHE representative, and the Digest’s commissioning editor.

Conference topics at the Design in Mental Health Conference & Exhibition 2013 at Birmingham’s National Motorcycle Museum in mid-May ranged from how to develop supportive design for dementia sufferers, to a new Dutch ‘High Care Unit’ pilot facility in Eindhoven incorporating multisensory elements from Philips Healthcare.

While healthcare estates and facilities teams NHS-wide are acutely aware of the need to reduce their facilities’ carbon footprint, obtaining the necessary funding to undertake the substantial improvements to buildings, plant, and equipment, that may, in many cases, be essential to achieving this goal, will remain a challenge for many Trusts for some time to come.

This year’s NAHFO Conference and Exhibition, held from 21-23 May at the Copthorne Merry Hill Hotel, Dudley, in the West Midlands, saw the introduction of advanced fire testing software by Static Systems Group.

As IHEEM often points out through articles in this Journal, and as the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE) puts it in the latest issue of the Engineering Council’s ‘Register News’ newsletter (May 2013; www.tinyurl.com/lvshjgs).

On page 71 of HTM 02-01 there is a quiet statement that ‘oil free compressors may be beneficial in reducing filter requirements’. But what, asks medical gas specialist, BeaconMedæs, does this little statement, delivered sotto voce, mean?