While the programme of building new hospitals seems to be on track, targets for existing estate replacement look unlikely to be reached, and backlog maintenance has increased. These are comments in Our Future Health Secured? – a comprehensive King’s Fund report by Sir Derek Wanless on the unprecedented levels of funding invested by the Government in the NHS over the past five years. Health Estate Journal reports.

The key steps that can be taken to minimise the risk of harmful waterborne bacteria such as Legionella and Pseudomonas proliferating widely through water systems in healthcare premises were discussed in detail during a recent two-day event staged by Delabie, one of Europe’s leading water control and sanitary equipment suppliers, at the company’s Friville headquarters in Picardy, northern France.

With substantial capital funding for new build NHS healthcare facilities increasingly scarce, many Trusts are now focusing ever harder on maximising use of existing space, and, where it is not being effectively used, on converting it for new or alternative clinical and non-clinical use.

Operating theatre technology has developed significantly in recent years, with increasing automation and control of functions like lighting, pendants, cameras, and viewing screens.

Europe’s newest hospital, and the UK’s largest ever PPP-funded and operated healthcare facility – the £650 million Royal London in Whitechapel – opened its doors on 1 March – following years of hard work and planning which has seen doctors and nurses involved throughout, working under the guidance of a 30-strong Barts and the London NHS Trust New Hospitals Programme team to create an optimal healing environment.

A property protection specialist explains how healthcare estates managers can keep disused buildings safe and secure in a novel way using ‘live-in’ security.

The key steps to ensuring that the various categories of healthcare waste are properly and responsibly segregated and disposed of.

How a new testing method is allowing facility managers to detect Pseudomonas in hospital water more quickly, and to deal with consequent contamination more effectively.

A look, by a lawyer, at the implications of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 for those procuring goods and services within the NHS.

Looking ahead to the healthcare challenges facing the next government, Conor Ellis, head of healthcare at built asset consultancy, EC Harris, argues, in a personal viewpoint, that ‘more commercial’ business case returns on investment, better commercial and FM delivery, and more strategic thought on project engagement ahead of procurement, should be among the priorities if the NHS is to continue to provide the standard of care for which it is world-renowned while operating efficiently and within tight budgets.

The tragedy of a patient dying through suicide is something that healthcare services strive to prevent. Although staff caring for those admitted to mental healthcare facilities will generally be highly vigilant over their patients’ wellbeing and state-of-mind – which should greatly reduce the risk of self-harm or suicide – predicting and preventing fatalities among such inpatients can be ‘fraught with difficulty’.

In an article that first appeared in the The Australian Hospital Engineer magazine, Cedric Cheong, managing director of Mycologia & Mould Worx, MSc, B.(Env. Sci.), TAE40110, examines the topic of mould exposure in healthcare facilities, and the associated duty of care for hospital facility managers and engineers.

The Department of Health has published revised HBN guidance on the technical design and output specifications of windows and associated hardware.

With the Government Construction Strategy requiring a strengthening of the public sector’s capability to implement Building Information Modelling (BIM) protocols.

The Living With Environmental Change (LWEC) partnership has published a concise but detailed document setting out some of the options for more sustainably and effectively preventing acute hospitals from summer overheating.

Vistamatic says it has ‘always worked hard to be at the forefront’ when it comes to developing new and innovative observation solutions for use within healthcare environments, and especially the NHS.

A new £6.4 million dual hybrid endovascular theatre suite at the Manchester Royal Infirmary (MRI), which the Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CMFT) says will ‘transform the treatment of patients undergoing minimally invasive vascular and cardiac procedures’, has recently come into operation. As HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie, discovered, when he met, a few weeks before its completion, with one of the vascular surgeons who championed it, and the Trust’s associate director for Surgical Services, who wrote the business case, the surgical suite makes the MRI the UK’s first hospital equipped with two adjacent full hybrid theatres utilising a robotic imaging system, with a fully flexible, synchronised operating table.

The BRE and the Design in Mental Health Network (DIMHN) are working together to develop ‘recognised quality standards’ for products used in mental healthcare buildings.

The BRE said: “There is little guidance, and few standards, for products used in these settings – the result being an inconsistent approach to product specification and performance across the NHS.”

A plumbing professional who almost spends as much time under the water as he does directing it through pipework is training tomorrow’s plumbing and heating professionals as part of their CPD studies.

Pegler Yorkshire’s 51-year-old technical trainer, Glenn Schofield, from Doncaster, who has won the British Championships, and played for Great Britain internationally, in the unusual underwater hockey sport of Octopush, is training ‘the next generation’ of installers at colleges countrywide, giving them the product knowledge and jointing expertise they need to make a successful career.

Door hinges, and small fingers getting trapped in them, continue to pose a health and safety issue in many sectors.

Such scenarios could, however, soon become less frequent, says Intastop, with its launch of a finger safety hinge which should prevent fingers being caught in the hinge opening side of the door.