With the NHS under increasing pressure to provide an ever improved level of service, there are plans for 7,500 existing GP practices in the UK to become 1,500 ‘Super Practices’. So what does the future hold for primary care services in the UK, and what issues need to be overcome from a logistical and estates standpoint? Adam Thompson, director at Primary Care Surveyors, specialists in the healthcare property market, investigates, and explains the issues with which the NHS and GPs will have to contend.

IHEEM has announced that it will be holding two seminars on ‘Sustainability’ in April and May this year. Speakers already confirmed for the ‘Plan Today for A Sustainable Tomorrow’ events, taking place at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole Hotel on 19 April, and on 16 May at a London venue to be confirmed, include Phil Nedin, an Institute Past President, Chartered Engineer, and director of Arup’s global healthcare business.

IHEEM has released fuller details of the agenda for three technical seminars being staged this year on “The role of practical risk management in estates”, with the first two to be held in London (18 May, at the Institute of Materials, Minerals & Mining) and Leeds (26 May, at the Thackray Museum) later this month.

Bob Heavisides, director of facilities, Milton Keynes Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, and senior research fellow, Medical Architecture Research Unit (MARU), at London South Bank University, considers, in a précis of a paper presented at last year’s Healthcare Estates conference, how a new master planning approach may bring significant benefits to the healthcare estate, arguing that, against today’s fastchanging backdrop, typical existing estates strategies may no longer be fully “fit-for-purpose”.

This Health Estate Journal ‘Then and now’ feature describes thoughts from about 30 years ago concerning the potential polluting effects of anaesthetic gases and vapours in the operating theatre. The article appeared in the May 1976 edition of Hospital Engineering, having been previously published in the journal Anaesthesia. Hospital Engineering was the official journal of the Institute of Hospital Engineering (now IHEEM).

While the UK has an enviable safety record in the management of medical gas systems, it is only via strict adherence to the four tenets – ‘continuity, adequacy, identity, and quality’ – embodied within Health Technical Memorandum 02-01: 2006 – ‘Medical Gas Pipeline Systems’ (MGPS) that we can be certain that patients will not be harmed by these systems.

Paul Styler, ETL, and and Jackie Heeds, Freeths, explore and address some of the common themes that Trusts face with PFI contract expiry, and the additional issues that such organisations need to be aware of

Damon High, a consultant at international testing, certification, qualification, training, and consultancy services provider TÜV Product Service, examines the issue of electromagnetic interference in hospitals, highlighting the areas that equipment suppliers and estates and facilities managers/healthcare engineers need to consider to ensure both the continuing safe, reliable operation of equipment, and compliance with the latest legislation.

The intricacies of the provision and control of air conditioning in hospitals have been debated for decades. For this Health Estate Journal ‘Then and now’ feature, Mike Arrowsmith BSc (Hons) CEng FIMechE FIHEEM, technical editor, provides commentary on an article which was published in The Hospital Engineer, the journal of the Institution of Hospital Engineers, in July 1960. The text of this article, which was based on a paper read before the Glasgow Branch of the Institution, follows that of the commentary.

An independent consultant, Authorising Engineer in ventilation/water and pressure systems, and Eastwood Park trainer, discusses the importance of HVAC systems in healthcare facilities, and equally, the need for good training on such plant for healthcare engineering and healthcare estates management personnel.

Maz Daoud, head of Fire Safety, NHS Estates, at NHS England, who chairs IHEEM’s Fire Safety Technical Platform, discusses recent revisions to HTM 05-03, and the implications for fire safety policies and procedures across the NHS estate. Here he focuses particularly on Part B, which looks at fire detection and fire alarm systems, including the reduction of false alarm and unwanted fire signals.

Air-conditioning technology specialist, Weiss Klimatechnik, believes it has developed one of the world’s first systems for continuous monitoring, and, where necessary, adjustment of laminar air flow quality and purity during, rather than prior to, surgical procedures, a technology it believes could substantially reduce rates of post-operative wound infection.

Harrowing television images of the evacuation of a number of New York hospitals during last October’s Hurricane Sandy will no doubt have prompted many estates managers to reconsider the adequacy and resilience of their emergency power supply.

An Essex-headquartered company which claims to manufacture the world’s leading “brand” of glass vision panel, is calling for legislation to regulate the quality and design of such products.

Hospitals and other healthcare facilities that do not regularly inspect, monitor, and, if necessary, clean, both their general ventilation ductwork and ‘often forgotten’ kitchen grease extract systems could not only be putting occupants’ health, and even lives, at risk, but could also face heavy financial penalties, significant damage to buildings, and even prosecution, a leading ductwork cleaning specialist has warned.

An architect explains some of the key stages of actually implementing and using BIM.

Susan Duffy, a director of commercial glazing specialist, Fendor, draws on the company’s many years’ experience in supplying window solutions for applications ranging from schools to high secure mental healthcare facilities to provide useful guidance on specifying the optimal glazing solution, with a particular focus on what specifiers in the mental healthcare sector should be seeking in terms of design, glass type, strength, robustness, damage resistance, and anti-ligature features.

Peter Hill, associate director and solicitor at specialist law firm TPP Law, considers the potential impact on estate management of the substantial reforms proposed for the NHS under last Year’s White Paper, “Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS”.

Workplace slips and trips cost an estimated £500 million per year, and sometimes cause serious injuries. Health Estate Journal reproduces guidance issued by the Health and Safety Executive on how correct floor cleaning can prevent accidents.

In a follow-up to last month’s “Fighting the waterborne menace” article (HEJ – March 2010), Dr Tom Makin, directorate manager, medical microbiology, at the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals Trust, and Martin Pride, new business development, at Kemper UK & Ireland, examine how Legionella has become a significant potential issue in hospital water systems, and discuss a novel, venturi-based engineering system co-developed by Kemper and a German university,