A planned maintenance strategy can pay for itself, and should be a top priority, explains Craig Harding, Technical Field Service manager at HVAC specialist, Aermec UK.

Ashley Morpeth, an Authorising Engineer at ETA Projects, and an experienced health and safety professional with particular expertise in the field, discusses some of the key guidance on formulating emergency and rescue plans for working at height, including rooftop working.

Simon Everett, a Senior lecturer in the Built Environment at Wrexham University, discusses some of the challenges of managing ‘legacy’ AHU systems across the healthcare estate, and some of the key steps for healthcare engineers to consider to minimise the risks of such equipment failing.

Healthcare facilities have unique ventilation requirements. Lee Jenkins-Skinner, CIAT’s AHU specialist, highlights recently updated guidance in this key area for hospital premises.

Assura Group has completed its 100th development at Prestbury in Wolverhampton. Work on Prestbury Medical Centre in Wolverhampton commenced in May 2022, and was completed on 29 June this year, with the new £6 m facility set to bring together two local surgeries with more than 14,500 patients, re-locating from premises that were not fit for purpose.

HAC Medical Gas Training and Services has developed a new e-learning package, adherent to HTM 02-01 (and SHTM 02-01) standards, ‘to make medical gas training more accessible and time-efficient for nursing and clinical personnel’.

The second ‘half’ of a report on an IHEEM roundtable held last November focusing on how working links between IHEEM and the wider healthcare estates management/ healthcare engineering sector, and academics working in associated fields, can be enhanced, and the resulting benefits to both ‘sides’.

Where hospital budgets are under pressure, roof maintenance and repairs are often addressed reactively. A look at why establishing the condition of flat roofs and taking a long-term approach to maintenance, repair, and replacement, will help manage budgets more effectively

Steam continues to play an important role in serving the requirements of modern healthcare facilities. Angelo Giambrone, Business Development manager at Spirax Sarco UK, discusses the influence of this versatile medium on our day-to-day living, and explains why the healthcare sector should continue to embrace steam as an integral component of a 21st-century hospital.

A ‘ground-breaking’ new Innovation Centre aimed at the catering, cleaning, and FM sectors is to open its doors for business on 1 May in Peterborough.

A ‘collaboration’ between Oxford company, GreenTeck Global, ‘an innovator in alternative green technologies’, and commercial kitchen experts, CK Direct, the Centre is based at CK Direct’s factory and showroom just a mile off the A1 (M), and is unusual, Greenteck says, in featuring a fully fitted, fully operational commercial kitchen as its centrepiece, all under one bespoke, stainless steel roof, also fabricated ‘from scratch’ on the premises.

Dave Hewitt, Sales & Marketing director at Courtney Thorne, considers some of the key selection criteria when choosing personal safety alarm systems for healthcare environments housing patients with more complex needs – including assessing the risks that such patients present, and their own particular needs. Increasingly, he explains, technologies from different types of equipment are converging – to the user’s benefit.

Electrical safety specialist, Bender, highlighted a complete ‘package’ of residual current monitoring hardware designed to ensure safe incoming electrical power supply, maintain uninterrupted operation of electrical devices, and protect patients and staff against electrical shock, at October’s Healthcare Estates 2017.

BRE and the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) have released ‘a new, improved briefing paper’ that outlines how projects may achieve both a certified BREEAM rating and WELL Certification.

The updated document, ‘Assessing Health and Wellbeing in Buildings - Alignment between BREEAM and the WELL Building Standard’, was developed as part of a commitment to continuous improvement by IWBI and BRE using industry feedback from professionals working to achieve joint certification of BREEAM and the WELL Building Standard (WELL).

Construction work is set to commence at the Dulwich Community Hospital site located in East Dulwich Grove in south London after the project reached financial close on 1 May.

The redevelopment plans, approved by Southwark Council in January 2017, comprise a new NHS healthcare centre and new secondary school, on the site of the former Dulwich Community Hospital.

A fire which broke out in the plant room of the Bristol Haematology and Oncology Centre (BHOC), part of the Bristol Royal Infirmary (BRI), in the early hours of 10 May, saw the evacuation of 53 patients to other wards in the BRI and the Bristol Heart Institute.

University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust said the fire – believed to have started at around 1.00 am – had caused ‘extensive smoke damage’ throughout the BHOC, with staff and management now ‘working hard to plan how we care for patients and get the hospital up and running again’.

The British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM) has announced plans to develop a new certified accreditation and a suite of training for facilities managers in charge of life safety in buildings.

Responding to Building a Safer Future, the final report by Dame Judith Hackitt published in mid-May, the Institute says it plans to ensure that facilities managers ‘have access to high quality training and professional development that can certify their competency to uphold the highest standards of life safety in the buildings they manage’.

Craig Holmes at Dart Valley Systems, outlines a practical approach to the safe management of healthcare water systems to minimise the risk of Legionella colonisation, and in turn prevent patients from contracting Legionnaire’s disease.

Nick Keegan, an expert in building energy efficiency and energy performance contracting, and a director at EEVS, considers some effective approaches to ‘de-risking’ heating projects in the drive towards Net Zero.

The National Fire Safety lead at NHSE/I explains how NHS Trusts can review their fire alarm systems and implement effective protocols to ensure that risk reduction in this area meets statutory requirements.

There are a range of different environments within a hospital that require shielding from electrostatic discharges (ESD) for the protection of patients, staff, and equipment.