Vanguard Healthcare Solutions says over 350 visitors looked around its new mobile Central Sterile Services Department (CSSD) unit at October’s Healthcare Estates 2019 event.

With patient safety a priority, NHS staff need uninterrupted access to clinical data 24 hours per day, 365 days a year. Phil McEneaney, from STULZ UK, warns that a failure to understand the difference between comfort cooling and precision cooling is resulting in poorly specified equipment – ‘leading to higher costs, IT failures, and increased risk’.

In hot water supplies, the use of use of unvented cylinders in hot water supplies is very common, and expansion tanks are often the preferred method to take up thermal expansion. One potential problem that can arise, however, is when the expansion tank is sited incorrectly, resulting in a ‘deadleg’, and a possible microbial problem.

Thousands of staff are giving safer, more efficient care to patients at 19 hospital sites in North East Scotland, says Ascom UK, thanks to the deployment of its mobile handsets and messaging software, which have enabled medical personnel to stop using ‘old-fashioned’ pagers for all but emergency communication.

Clare Tattersall, editor of the CHES magazine, Canadian Healthcare Facilities, examines the wide-ranging measures that staff at the Markham Stouffville Hospital in Markham, Ontario, have taken to raise the healthcare facility’s environmental performance and sustainability credentials since it opened nearly three decades ago.

Ascom, a ‘global healthcare ICT and mobile workflow solutions provider’, and medical and safety technology specialist, Dräger, are to partner to integrate Ascom’s Unite clinical messaging platform and Dräger’s patient monitoring systems.

The Building Engineering Services Association (BESA) has launched a scheme ‘to help ventilation hygiene specialists demonstrate their competence, quality, and standards’.

BAM Construction has started work under a ProCure22 contract for Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust on a new children’s cardiac hybrid theatre and intra-operative MRI facility at Leeds Children’s Hospital, set to open in February 2019, which will create a dedicated environment for paediatric cardiac surgery and paediatric neurosurgery.

A £7 m investment in making Harrogate District Hospital more energy-efficient means an estimated £625,000 per year for the next 25 years (over £15.6 million in total) can instead be spent on direct patient care, Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust says.

Three ‘unique and specialist’ degree programmes – Foundation Degrees in Hospital Engineering and Medical Equipment Technologies, and a BSc (Hons) in Management of Healthcare Engineering Technologies & Facilities – start at Eastwood Park next month, and, the Gloucestershire-based training establishment points out, ‘there is not long left to apply’.

‘As the world transitions from analogue to digital’, Legrand Assisted Living & Healthcare says it has been ‘leading the digitalisation agenda in technology-enabled care services (TECs)’ by discussing the implications of the switchover at six Digital Roadshow events held across the UK – ‘from Glasgow to London’

MTX says it is ‘extremely proud’ to have secured a place on the local authority procurement specialist LHC’s Modular Buildings (MB1) Framework.

‘Integrated healthcare provider’, Core IHS, works with theatre staff to ensure that theatre equipment is properly maintained, ‘and ease the pressure on facilities by preparing them for CQC inspections and ensuring compliance with NatSSIP and LocSSIP Standards for Invasive Procedures’.

As part of an on-going relationship with Spire Healthcare, Medical Air Technology (MAT) has recently completed work at Spire Murrayfield Hospital in Edinburgh, refurbishing and upgrading an existing operating theatre.

A recent NHS Improvement Patient Safety Alert has warned healthcare providers of the dangers of patients being accidentally administered with medical air instead of oxygen.

Medical engineering company, Avensys UK, is launching a new combined maintenance and training service ‘for all brands, models, and ages, of endoscope’.

We breathe dirty air in – and out – all the time. Pollution and contamination can come from a variety of sources, including ourselves: the outer layer of human skin can host up to 1 million microorganisms per square cm and human saliva up to 1 billion per mL.

Maintaining stringent infection control in healthcare facilities is clearly a high priority at all times, but with the COVID-19 pandemic having contributed to over 125,000 deaths in the UK alone – has assumed even greater importance.

Patrick Morrison, Pre-contract manager for healthcare at NG Bailey, explores why modern methods of construction are, as he puts it, ‘key to the future success of construction in healthcare’.

This month will see the Italian Society for Healthcare Architecture and Engineering (SIAIS ) host the 26th IFHE 2020, themed ‘Global Climate Action Energy Requirements'