How much do healthcare estate professionals ever think about what goes into the design of products used in the workplace every day? There may be much, much, more to them than is realised, as industrial designer Bruce Hutchison of DesignEdge Cambridge explains.

All IHEEM members are invited to join president Phil Nedin at the IHEEM Annual AGM, 15 May 2007, Institute of Physics, 76 Portland Place, London. The AGM will be preceded by a free seminar and close with lunch. This is an exclusive IHEEM members’ event and is free to attend.

Brian James, chief executive of Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust, is the latest senior NHS executive to join the speaker panel at the HEFMA 2007 Annual Conference & Exhibition, taking place 23-24 May at the Hilton Blackpool hotel.

The 2007 HEFMA Conference & Exhibition, to be held at the Hilton Blackpool Hotel on 23 and 24 May, will be the 10th annual event organised by the Health Facilities Management Association. Health Estate Journal presents a preview.

Sir Digby Jones, UK Skills Envoy and former director general of the CBI, launched the new Work Wise UK Quality Mark during the Work Wise UK Summit at the QEII Conference Centre in London in mid-May. The new quality mark will allow any organisation to gain recognition for its successful introduction of new smarter working practices in the workplace.

Early-age thermal concrete cracking occurs when tensile strain, arising from either restrained thermal contraction or a temperature differential within the concrete section, exceeds the tensile strain capacity of the concrete. Autogenous shrinkage may also contribute to early contraction.

Clinical and biomedical engineers who feel a project has improved the day-today running of a department, or are particularly proud of a large procurement exercise, have until 6 May to enter an award scheme being launched this year by medical diagnostic and healthcare product manufacturer Welch Allyn.

IHEEM’s 2008 AGM, taking place at the recently refurbished Royal Academy of Engineering at London’s No 3, Carlton House Terrace on 13 May, will see the appointment, as the Institute’s new president for the next two years, of Rob Smith, who is head of the Department of Health Gateway Reviews and director of the Department’s Estates and Facilities Division.

IHEEM’s Northern Ireland Branch promises that a “wealth of high profile speakers” will discuss such topical issues as the “pros and cons” of single room accommodation, infection control, and sustainability, at a two-day conference being staged by the Branch at Bangor’s Marine Court Hotel on 21 and 22 May themed “Making a Difference”.

UK fire “experts” and senior fire brigade personnel recently heavily criticised fire safety standards in NHS hospitals. They claimed, in a BBC Radio 4 documentary, both that existing fire safety provision in some hospitals is ineffective, and that fire brigade and other expert advice for improvements following even serious fires may be being routinely ignored. Jonathan Baillie reports.

Phil Nedin will be among the speakers at a one-day event examining “21st Century hospital ventilation” and being staged by the Institute of Mechanical Engineers’ Healthcare Division at the IMechE’s 1, Birdcage Walk headquarters in London on 15 May.

At a recent presentation at the PCT headquarters in Oldham, Dr Tom Makin, of the Department of Medical Microbiology, Royal Liverpool University Hospitals, described the problems associated with Legionella pneumophila. Health Estate Journal reports.

Adrian Parkin, operations director at Howorth Air Technology, describes how, in May, Ireland’s Aut Even Hospital near Kilkenny became the country’s first healthcare facility to be fitted out exclusively with UCV (ultra-clean ventilated) operating theatres, guaranteeing that patients’ operations take place in the cleanest air possible.

A series of Institute seminars which will investigate recent developments in legislation covering risk management, and the implications for the way in which healthcare estates and facilities management personnel approach the issue, begins in May.

The new Bristol Heart Institute (BHI), part of University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust (UH Bristol), and one of a number of specialist regional cardiology and cardiac surgery centres built in England over the past decade in line with Department of Health regional cardiac provision strategy, opened to its first patients in May.

If you have not been to Healthcare Estates recently, or indeed ever, you may not realise what you have been missing. The event has grown substantially over recent years, and is now the largest dedicated event focused on health estates and facilities management in Europe.

Following its successful participation in “The Big Bang Young Scientists’ & Engineers’ Fair” at Manchester Central in March (HEJ – February, March, April and May 2010), IHEEM has announced its support for next year’s event, to be held at the ICC London ExCel on 10-12 March 2011.

Real Asset Management, the supplier of asset management software to the NHS, is encouraging potential customers that did not have the opportunity to visit its stand in Manchester, but may be seeking an efficient estates helpdesk and maintenance management solution, to contact it for a product demonstration.

A-Gas (UK) has “gone live” with a dedicated website to help businesses gain further insight and help with the virgin HCFC use ban. The re-packager of refrigerant and other gases says that, “despite all the publicity and warnings”, there are still end-users unaware that they may be storing illegal refrigerants.

This year’s HefmA National Conference, being held at Harrogate’s Majestic Hotel from 27-28 May, is being organised by the Association’s Northern and Yorkshire branch and will, the organisers promise, give estates and facilities managers “the arena to discuss and debate how the NHS can survive, strive, and thrive, not only in the economic downturn, but also amid the bleak financial outlook for public spending over the next few years”.