Sharon Kuligowski, managing director, Dunphy Combustion, provides an update on issues relating to the use of non-fossil fuels. This article is based on a paper presented at IHEEM’s Healthcare Estates Conference held in Harrogate last October.

With construction work now underway on the new £227 million PFI-funded Pembury Hospital near Tunbridge Wells in Kent, Jonathan Baillie talks to John Cooper of architects Anshen + Allen, who is convinced that this exciting new acute facility will become the first of a new generation of 100% single-bedroom hospitals in the UK.

Glen Hadfield, MIHEA, area assets and energy manager, Sydney West Area Health Service, reports on how the sizeable Australian Government health agency embarked on a ground-breaking energy abatement scheme, and the significant challenges overcome and lessons learned in the process.

New legislation in The Netherlands concentrates on the importance of correct ventilation in operating theatres to prevent post-operative infections. H.J Nicolaas, of the Netherlands Board for Health Facilities, explains the new guidelines.

BUPA Hospitals has recently become independent of the BUPA Group, having been sold to private equity group Cinven. Stressing the importance of appropriate further investment in its care environments, the organisation, now named Spire Healthcare, is set to push standards of private healthcare provision to new levels. Nicholas Marshall reports.

Flooring is a crucial element in healthcare settings, so choosing the most appropriate materials, and employing the correct cleaning methods, should be high on the list of priorities for all healthcare estate managers, as Lesley Davis, a regional area manager at supplier of industrial and commercial floor cleaning machines, Truvox International, explains.

A hospital car park needs to balance the demands of patients, visitors, and staff, without, for example, compromising emergency vehicles’ access to the Accident & Emergency Department.

Hospitals and healthcare facilities use a variety of heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) equipment for a wide range of applications. Here, in our latest technical guidance article, presented in a ‘Question and Answer’-type format, Adam Spolnik, director, and Richard Metcalfe, sales director, of temperature control specialist, ICS Cool Energy, focus on some of the key priorities, maintenance-wise, to get the optimum performance from chillers and HVAC components, and identify the units that perform best for particular healthcare applications.

Bristan claims to be the UK’s largest supplier of bathroom and kitchen taps, and the second largest of mixer showers. With the launch, early in July 2011, as part of a major re-branding exercise, of ‘a tailored collection’ of taps, showers, and accessories, for commercial and public sector applications that brought together its own products with those from Sirrus by Gummers, the company is now targeting healthcare more seriously than ever before.

In the latest of our series of articles designed to provide healthcare engineers with sound technical guidance on equipment or technology-related topics, John O’Leary, key account manager at Trend Controls (who in April’s HEJ discussed the benefits of natural ventilation in healthcare settings), explains the functions of a building energy management system (BEMS).

Professor Branka Dimitrijevic, director of CIC Start Online, a project funded by the Scottish Government and European Regional Development Fund combining the resources of seven Scottish universities that aims to embed sustainable building design and refurbishment into practice, reports on a conference jointly staged in Glasgow recently by the organisation and Health Facilities Scotland that considered this topical issue in some depth.

Alan Daniels, business development director of emergency lighting specialist, P4, describes the latest trends in, and requirements for, emergency lighting, a vital part of the building services footprint in hospitals and other healthcare premises.

In response to the enactment of the Government’s Health and Social Care Bill, and following a ‘period of transition’ in the Department of Health, the NHS Estates and Facilities Policy Division has outlined an ‘agenda’ that sets out its key responsibilities and functions as the health service enters a new era.

Ken Marriott, an independent acoustics consultant with Industrial Commercial & Technical Consultants (ICTC), outlines some of the key acoustics considerations for those planning new hospital build or refurbishment schemes, cautioning that, all too often, this important area is not properly considered at a sufficiently early project stage.

IHEEM will hold technical seminars on decontamination, infection and pest control, and water quality, over the next few months, including one in Birmingham next month (there is still time to book).

The director of a food safety consultancy explains how listeriosis can arise in healthcare settings, and sets out the key priorities to prevent vulnerable patients contracting it.

With the Waste (Scotland) Regulations 2012, which actually came into effect on 1 January 2014 in Scotland, requiring all the country’s healthcare facilities to separate their waste for recycling, waste management consultants, Jess Twemlow and Dr Adam Read of Ricardo-AEA, consider what healthcare facilities south of the border can learn from Scotland’s experience about improved waste management and resource efficiency.

Alongside key elements such as lighting, interior décor, artwork, and good air quality, the quality of furniture in a healthcare setting plays a key role in creating a comfortable, fit-for-purpose, and therapeutic environment for patients, and a good staff working environment.

Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has appointed construction and engineering company, MTX, to supply, install, and commission, a new modular endoscopy decontamination unit at Bradford Royal Infirmary (BRI).

Keen to identify if there remained significant potential to reduce energy consumption in a ‘typical’ operating theatre, Tom Pierce, consultant anaesthetist and clinical lead for sustainability at University Hospital Southampton, and two fellow medical professionals, Gemma Morris, a Foundation Year 1 doctor at Basingstoke and North Hampshire Hospital, and Beena Parker, an ST trainee in anaesthesia at Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.