Charlotte Hutchinson, Associate partner, Carter Jonas (London), discusses the long-term impacts of the global pandemic on the future provision of healthcare real estate

Mark Roberts, UK Public Sector director at Jaggaer, takes a look at the potential impact on the healthcare sector of the Procurement Act 2023, which came into force in February, and outlines technology’s role in, for example, complying with the new requirement to continuously monitor supplier performance and ethical behaviour throughout a contract’s lifecycle.

Ashley Morpeth, an Authorising Engineer at Eta Projects, and an experienced and qualified health and safety professional with over 15 years’ experience in the Work at Height and Confined Spaces sector, discusses some of the key reasons why he believes a number of HTM guidance documents are badly in need of updating.

It is easy to understand why fire safety is paramount in electrical installations, but – says Paul Martin, head of Specification for Cable Management Legrand UK & Ireland – where fire rating for cable management systems is concerned, the lack of a British Standard leaves room for confusion. Here he explains how those looking after healthcare facilities can ensure that their product specification offers them peace of mind in terms both of performance in a fire situation and significantly reduced ongoing costs.

Dave Hewitt, Sales & Marketing director at Courtney Thorne, looks at some of the key benefits of wire-free communications technology – now very much an accepted norm in healthcare settings, but warns potential purchasers of wire-free systems to ensure that what they are looking at buying is fit for purpose, and will perform ‘as specified’ – for example without interfering with adjacent equipment’s operation – in a real-world setting.

Providing a clean water supply is a priority in hospital and clinical settings, but the handling and usage of associated water treatment chemicals on site can be challenging. Kieran Fleming, Business Development manager at Synthesis Water Solutions (Synthesis), outlines the main issues encountered when using such chemicals, and highlights how an innovative oxidising biocide can offer ‘a safer and easier-to-use’ alternative.

Effective water management in healthcare estates is critical for ensuring patient safety and sustainability. Richard Braid, managing director at Keraflo, explains how advances in technology can help healthcare engineering teams monitor and maintain water safety, reduce waste, and ‘ensure that this valuable resource is on hand the moment it is needed’.

Neil Campbell, Chief Sales officer at eEnergy, discusses some of the ways that healthcare estates teams can lower the amount of energy wasted in their buildings, and some of the other – in many cases relatively straightforward and inexpensive – steps they can take to reduce the carbon footprint of their estate and play their part in the NHS achieving its Net Zero goals.

Dr Mike Weinbren, a consultant medical microbiologist, examines some of the major health risks from airborne and waterborne microorganisms transmitted via hospital wastewater systems.

Sarah Walter, managing director of Charleston, South Carolina-based architecture and engineering firm, Page Southerland Page, and Nora Colman, an Assistant Professor in Paediatrics in the division of Paediatric Critical Care Medicine at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, discuss some of the most important elements in the quest to balance an open and welcoming space with sufficient security when designing children’s healthcare facilities.

Dean Sullivan, Deputy CEO and Chief Strategy Officer at Ireland’s Health Service Executive, stresses the importance of the public sector taking a lead in the drive toward Net Zero.

HTM 06-01 is one of the most recognised sets of guidelines in the healthcare sector. Samuel Rea, Healthcare divisional manager at Power Control, emphasises the importance of secondary and tertiary power supplies, drawing on an example of a recent project undertaken by the company at Scarborough General Hospital, where it stepped in rapidly to help when two of the main generators failed.

David Evans, Public Sector Segments leader at Schneider Electric UK&I, explores the ‘important, but often underestimated’, issue of power quality in medical research facilities.

Chris Connors, head of Sales (South) at DTGen, discusses the future of standby power generation in hospitals and other healthcare facilities.

BDP, which was responsible for drawing up plans for 6 emergency Nightingale hospitals, looks at the ways in which lessons learnt during the COVID-19 pandemic could inform the way healthcare provision in the UK is designed in future

Concerns around oxygen supply have dogged the response to COVID-19 for hospital Trusts around the UK. Many systems have struggled to deliver the flow capacity required to meet demand from the high numbers of patients requiring ventilation.

David Livingstone, a Chartered Engineer, and the managing director of DRLC, Consulting Engineers, discusses some of the key considerations for healthcare engineers to ensure that the performance of air-handling units in hospitals located in coastal areas is not compromised by corrosion created by the increased concentration of salt in the local atmosphere.

The Sales director at Halton, explains how it supplied an ultraclean ventilation system based on controlled dilution principles for 35 operating theatres in the new hospital buildings at the Karolinska University Hospital in Solna, Sweden.

William Tonkinson, managing director of healthcare furniture manufacturer, Deanestor, explains how furniture for healthcare environments ‘does not have to compromise design’.

Three years ago, Bristan commissioned a whitepaper, ‘Your Views: Infection Control for Water Delivery’. Now, Chris Tranter, revisits the report’s key findings, and reflects on the fundamental, yet unresolved, issues it raises.