As efforts to develop a COVID-19 vaccine continue, keyc onsiderations emerge with regards to the vaccine cold chain throughout mass distribution.

Chris McElroy, Specification and Design consultant at Altro, discusses some of the fundamentals for achieving good acoustics in healthcare settings, to the benefit of all users, with a particular focus on the role that well-designed floorcoverings can play.

The Institute has undertaken a review of its Code of Professional Conduct and Disciplinary Regulations by reference to the guidelines, Code, and Disciplinary Regulations recommended by the Engineering Council and benchmarked across other professional engineering institutes.

Floors are one of the biggest capital assets of the healthcare estate and, under a continual stampede of feet, suffer the most wear and abuse of all, making it unsurprising that flooring – of whatever type – is regularly replaced, despite the considerable potential expense.

The first of a series of 15 dementia care homes planned to open across southern and southwestern England over the next five years by Archstone Lifestyle Care, a new sister company to builder of luxury homes for older people Archstone Lifestyle Homes, was officially opened late last year at Verwood in Dorset in an attractive, leafy location on the edge of the New Forest.

A simulated hospital environment has been created at Trumpf’s new facilities in Luton with the aim of promoting a better understanding of environmental factors in improving patient recovery, as well as key considerations such as lighting and televised training in theatres. Louise Frampton reports.

Location of health facilities closer to the communities they serve, bringing together health and other services and, where possible, through technologies such as telehealth, enabling patients to undergo more treatment in their own homes, are already major talking points among those responsible for future estates planning.

Independent sustainability consultant and BREEAM healthcare assessor James Rainbird explains in detail how he recently helped a large primary care Trust in north-west England with its carbon footprinting.

How operating theatre design has changed, and the considerable differences in approach taken in the UK, mainland Europe, and North America in the past 5-10 years to enhancing the design of both the theatre itself, and the associated waiting, preparation and recovery facilities, were the subject of a fascinating presentation by Keith Millay,

A 20-page A4 booklet detailing his experiences as a blind person and including helpful practical tips on the considerations for the visually impaired, has been produced by Klaus Kopp (pictured), an elected public Governor representing Basildon members of South Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (SEPT).

Phil Wade, sales and marketing director, and Mathew Wakelam, VoIP product manager, at alarm and communication specialist Static Systems Group, discuss wireless VoIP’s potential in healthcare establishments and examine how, in particular, the technology can be successfully integrated with nurse call systems.

Les Blennerhasset, technical director of Dortek, one of the UK and Ireland’s leading suppliers of hygienic doors to the healthcare sector, examines the potential difficulties encountered when specifying doors in the healthcare environment and how to overcome them.

Children and adolescents’ differing views on what constitutes a comfortable hospital environment are examined in a study by Sanaz Litkouhi, Dr Farhang Mozaffar and Dr S. Bagher Hoseini of the Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran.

In one form or another, concrete has been around for some 7,000 years and will, it appears, continue being the sine qua non construction material for the foreseeable future, says John Milner, chairman of the Structural Precast Association. This article was first published in the March 2007 issue of Building Engineer.

Stuart Ward, MSc BA CEng FCIBSE FIHEEM MASHRAE, provides details of a study of oxygen flow rates at the Clifford Hospital, Panyu, Peoples Republic of China. For this article – previously published in the August 2004 edition of Health Estate Journal – he was presented, in May this year, with the Northcroft Silver Medal. The medal is awarded
annually to the IHEEM member having written the HEJ article considered to have contributed most to the advancement of hospital engineering. Stuart Ward is chief engineer at the Clifford Hospital.

New and innovative secure storage technology offers greater convenience and flexibility than traditional systems, particularly for the storage of valuable instruments and controlled drugs, as David Price of System Store Solutions explains.

For decades, solutions based on the use of ordinary keys have been the mainstay of secure storage in healthcare applications, but these solutions have severe limitations. Keys can be mislaid, depriving authorised users of access to equipment and drugs which may be urgently needed.

Developments in the UK’s Firecode for hospital fire safety are profiled by Professor David Charters PhD CEng MIMechE FIFireE MSFPE, director of fire engineering, BRE Fire and Security, UK. This article is based on a paper presented at the 1st European Conference on Healthcare Engineering held in Baden- Baden, Germany, last September. The conference was staged by the European Competence Center of Healthcare Engineering, an organisation formed by a group of associations most of which are members of the International Federation of Hospital Engineering. Health Estate Journal is grateful to Prof Charters, the ECCHE and IFHE for their help in providing the article for publication.

‘Audit’ and ‘screen’ techniques are highly valuable in the good management of asbestos, says Alan Hambidge, director and principal consultant of controls-assurance.co.uk

The management of asbestos within an organisation responsible for a large and diverse property portfolio may seem daunting.

Kristen Guida, chair of directors and co-founder of Climate UK, a not-for-profit community interest company and a national network of 12 climate change partnerships in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, discusses improving resilience planning, to enable estates teams in hospitals and other healthcare facilities to be better prepared to deal with, and mitigate the effects of, flooding and other severe weather events.

The Kent Institute of Medicine & Surgery (KIMS) Hospital, the £120 m independent hospital on a seven-acre site near Maidstone which is Kent’s only tertiary care facility, and which opened last April (HEJ – May 2014), recently undertook what staff say was the county’s first open heart surgery procedure.

The hospital has a strong focus in areas of complex care such as cardiology, cardiothoracic surgery, and neuroscience.