Impey Showers has unveiled its latest showering technology for those with mobility issues. Its Impey Freedom air-assisted doors incorporate a ‘unique’ air-assisted spring mechanism that lifts the doors clear off the ground at the press of a lever.

Existing and potential readers of HEJ can now log onto the magazine’s website (www.healthestatejournal.com) and register to read each issue, complete, in digital form, at a time and place convenient to them.

Fire risk assessments (see also fire safety-related articles, pages 37-42 of this issue) addressing life safety and/or property protection, fire safety audits, and fire safety training, are among the services offered by the not-for-profit organisation, the Fire Protection Association (FPA).

This presentation will explain how collaboration between the Lincolnshire Partnerships NHS Foundation Trust (LPFT), design teams, and the contractor, culminated in an award-winning mental health rehabilitation facility in Lincoln.

A diverse range of filtration membranes for ‘critical contamination control’ in healthcare, specifically engineered for the filtration of hospital water, respiration, parenteral therapy, general surgical applications, and blood component therapy, is offered by Pall Medical.

With its trainers possessing some of the UK’s leading expertise in the design and operation of medical gas systems – a number having worked in the field since the early 1970s – specialist medical gas training provider and consultancy, MGPS Services, offers its wide range of courses today from what it believes to be the UK’s best-equipped training facility for all working with, or responsible for, the safe and efficient operation of medical gas pipeline systems.

The Department of Health (DH) has released a revised and updated version of its NHS Premises Assurance Model (NHS PAM), a software-based tool originally launched in 2010 to enable estates and facilities managers to more easily gauge the overall ‘condition’ of their built estate, provide premises assurance to their management Boards using a nationally consistent technique, assure commissioners that healthcare is being delivered from high quality, ‘clean, safe, and suitable’ premises, and identify the priority areas for improving premises infrastructure efficiency and quality.

ECEX has launched a new range of air intake screens designed for all types of HVAC equipment and cooling tower applications. It says protecting air intake equipment can reduce preventative plant maintenance by up to 70 per cent, and prolong the life of HVAC internal air filters by up to 60 per cent.

The online CPD recording system, MyPath, launched in 2010, accessible via the IHEEM website, and which many members have since taken advantage of, has been ‘rebranded’, and is now called ‘mycareerpath’.

With hospital parking a complex, and sometimes contentious, issue, ParkingEye says it is ‘committed to providing the best possible, and most efficient, solution to enhance the patient/visitor experience’.

ISS Facility Services says that, while traditionally, services such as catering and cleaning have been ‘the mainstay of contracted out NHS business’, there are many other services where private sector providers have been able to assist.

Recognising that many patients are being encouraged to exercise as part of their recovery plan while in hospital, Static Systems’ latest Fusion-IP ‘app’ allows patients to move around in safety by giving them the ability to quickly and easily summon help from staff who can accurately locate them in real time.

John Prendergast, a Decontamination Engineer working within the specialist team at NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership /Facilities Services, and Wayne Spencer, an independent consultant on decontamination and healthcare engineering issues, with high-level previous experience at the Department of Health and the Welsh Health Common Services Authority (now NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership), report on a recent study day held in Birmingham, and staged by The Central Sterilising Club, entitled ‘Update on Decontamination Standards’.

A document recently released by the Department of Health through the NHS Technology Adoption Centre (NTAC) is intended to be used by hospitals to support the business case for implementation of point-of-use (POU) filters in the UK.

Five companies – Balfour Beatty, Skanska, Vinci, Willmott Dixon, and Kier – have submitted tenders to the West London Mental Health NHS Trust in a bid to become main contractor for the Broadmoor Hospital redevelopment.

IHEEM has available a number of fully funded (no cost) invitations to the NHS Sustainable Development 2013 Conference and Exhibition, to be held at the Brewery Conference Centre in London on 14 February.

With considerable evidence that the quality of the building ‘space’ within which mentally unwell patients are cared for impacts significantly both on speed and degree of recovery, the Design in Mental Health Network (DIMHN) has been working with the BRE and leading product suppliers over the past 5-6 years to develop a ‘Better Bedroom’ for such patients.

Construction has started of a new £5 million Cancer Care Centre and Pathology Essential Services Laboratory (CCC-ESL) at Wigan’s Royal Albert Edward Infirmary.

Howorth Air Technology, which has already successfully completed many projects throughout Spire Healthcare’s UK hospitals, has installed its new Exflow Evolution Screenless ultraclean ventilation canopy at the Spire Washington Hospital, replacing the hospital’s existing UCV canopy, from a different supplier.

Vistamatic, which says it offers ‘the leading brand of glazed privacy vision panels’, can design and supply ‘for all levels of healthcare environments – from maternity areas to challenging high-secure mental health environments’.