Healthcare providers have a duty of care to patients. Along with nursing and medical staff, this includes the requirement that healthcare estates and facilities management and healthcare engineering personnel ensure that appropriate governance arrangements for critical power back-up at their particular healthcare facility are managed effectively. Alex Emms, Technical director at Kohler Uninterruptible Power (KUP), looks at some of the key considerations.

Presymptom Health, a ‘medtech company and pioneer of a portfolio of AI-driven early diagnostic tests for infection and sepsis’, has been selected to join the Innovative Devices Access Pathway (IDAP) pilot – a new pathway designed to ensure that technology is helping UK patients as quickly as possible.

Les Szabo, NSW (New South Wales) State manager at Australian water treatment specialist, HydroChem, discusses work to implement an effective Legionella risk management and prevention strategy for the hot water system at a Sydney hospital. Among the key steps taken to address the existing protocols’ shortcomings were establishing a proper sampling protocol, implementing a monthly maintenance programme for chlorine dosing, taking samples from locations on each floor – with a focus on showers, and installing a chorine dosing unit equipped with remote telemetry.

Is it correct to assume that manual daily cleaning provides the best protection for people who use high-touch surfaces like door handles? In this article, Ian Graham, founder of Glana, and developer of the Axiene Clean Touch antimicrobial door handle system (HEJ – November 2021), describes the findings from hygiene performance trials comparing standard cleaning procedures with new Axiene technology

Clive Nattrass of the Carbon and Energy Fund explains how the NHPower programme is using collaboration to manage risks associated with Trusts progressing to Net Zero, while three co-authors focus on the opportunities for decarbonisation of natural gas at the point of use and potential wider NHS deployment of geothermal energy technology.

In the November 2016 HEJ, Greg Truscott, BArch DipMgt MIHEA, manager, Infrastructure & New Works, Royal Perth Hospital, Bentley Health Service & Armadale Health Service, in Western Australia, discussed a project he has led at the hospital to improve the facility’s wayfinding and signage.

Over the past four decades the delivery of estates and facilities management services to NHS Trusts has evolved considerably. A look at this changing scene, and at an emerging ‘Estates Integrator’ model.

Becky Hill, an applied biology and microbiology research scientist who ‘transitioned into the corporate world’ – developing her knowledge skills and expertise in water treatment and purification – before founding performance improvement and strategic advisor company, Solutions 42, outlines her ‘holistic approach and measurable solutions to learning and development interventions in healthcare’.

Dr Melvyn Langford, who worked for nearly four decades in the NHS, including as an estates and facilities manager, discusses – using mathematical computations – the factors that have long convinced him that there is ‘a fundamental flaw’ within the ‘5x5 risk matrix’ used to establish the relative urgency of backlog maintenance in NHS healthcare facilities.

Two academics discuss the growing potential for smart sensor technology to monitor and detect airborne infection in hospitals

Aspergillus, a fungus whose spores are ubiquitous in the environment, and are normally found in air, can be a significant issue in healthcare premises, and especially in hospital ventilation systems.

In 2013 Peter Sellars, head of Profession for Estates & Facilities Policy at the Department of Health, successfully bid for £50 million from the Treasury to help finance a range of ‘spend-to-save’ energy efficiency initiatives across the NHS in England. In all 117 energy efficiency projects were initiated across 48 English NHS organisations – funded through a dedicated NHS Energy Efficiency Fund.

Currently, the NHS in England collectively spends over £633 million1 on energy alone annually. With 245 Trusts,2 that is an average of £2.6 million per Trust. There is no one ‘quick-fix’ solution; the NHS needs instead to think ‘outside the box’ to make manageable improvements to its estate, and free up hefty sums to drive back into patient care.

A venturi-based system installed at Manchester’s ‘old’ Saint Mary’s Hospital, designed to ensure regular flow of cold potable water flow throughout pipework, prevent stagnation, maintain HTM 04-01-compliant water temperatures – thus helping to minimise growth of potentially harmful waterborne bacteria, and eliminate deadlegs.

Even for a company where many employees have contributed long service, with 45 years under his belt at commercial washroom and showering system manufacturer, Kohler Mira, the company’s commercial marketing manager on the Rada brand, Roy Minett, has seen his share of change.

Andrew Poplett, a highly experienced engineer with over 28 years’ experience in healthcare building services engineering, considers some of the key tenets of good fire safety practice in healthcare premises, noting that fire safety is a core element and consideration within CQC inspections, and under the NHS Premises Assurance Model (NHS PAM). He warns those responsible for fire safety against letting key elements ‘fall between the cracks’.

A look ahead to this month’s 2016 HeƒmA Leadership Forum in Telford, where among the key talking points will be the findings and recommendations of Lord Carter’s team.

How to establish an effective Water Safety Group and associated Water Safety Plan as part of a determined strategy to keep a healthcare facility’s water system safe.

The importance of properly understanding the risks associated with closed circuit water pipework systems, and how to minimise such risks, explained.

An article first published in The Australian Hospital Engineer examines some of the issues around corrosion of the reinforcing steel in concrete, and how to combat them.