Vernacare, synonymous with infection control in the healthcare sector, has produced a new brochure for key decision makers across PFI and other new build initiatives – the brochure outlines the pros and cons for sites faced with making the important choice of whether to use reusable or disposable bedpans, urinals and bowls.

Artificially created melatonin-supressing blue light can improve patient outcomes and invigorate healthcare staff. Nicholas Marshall reports.

The 2006 Institute of Decontamination Sciences Conference in Scotland played host to 200 delegates and covered a wide range of topics, from compliance standards to endoscopy services. Report by Kate Woodhead RGN DMS, independent operating theatre consultant.

High-level estates personnel from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland discussed some of the key challenges facing healthcare estates teams at a seminar, “The top five issues from a national perspective”, staged before the 2009 IHEEM AGM in London. Jonathan Baillie reports.

Louise Corfield, IHEEM business development manager, describes the launch of a new IHEEM approval scheme which should help members faced with a bewildering array of training course choices, in some topic areas, to identify those offering the optimal content.

A recent study by researchers at The University of Sheffield suggested that, despite the avowed intention to cater for young people of all ages, the majority of hospital accommodation is overly geared to the needs and preferences of its youngest occupants, rather than those of older children and adolescents.

Health sector expert Alan Maynard, Professor of Health Economics at the University of York, a former chair of York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, and a member of the Prime Minister’s “kitchen cabinet” on health, plus writer, broadcaster, and commentator Roy Lilley – twice voted top UK speaker on NHS topics – are among those set to speak at this year’s Healthcare Estates conference, which takes place from 1-2 November at Manchester Central.

Representatives from 14 countries from the total membership of 32 national organisations attended the IFHE’s Council meeting in Paris on 3 June, writes Andy Wavell, who attended on IHEEM’s behalf with fellow IHEEM Membership and International Affairs Committee representative, Ronnie Browne.

Adiabatic cooling specialist, Transtherm Cooling Industries, discusses the shift towards dry/wet evaporative cooling methods.

Onecom, reportedly the UK’s largest independent business telecommunications provider, has signed a UK partnership agreement with Sony Mobile Communications to sell, support, and develop the latter’s 'Internet of Things' (IoT) products and services.

Sony Mobile will work with Onecom as its exclusive UK-headquartered partner for ‘Tracking Solutions’, and also collaborate with it on ‘a range of solutions driven by smart connected devices for use in cross-vertical applications including business, infrastructure, transport and the public sector’.

David Bailey Furniture Systems has been chosen to supply furniture for two substantial hospital furniture refits based in Wales – the £6.5 million upgrade to maternity and neonatal services at the Prince Charles Hospital in Mid Glamorgan, and the £5.8 million ‘state-of-the-art’ refurbishment of the renal unit at Swansea’s Morriston Hospital.

Selected by Interserve Building as its hospital furniture partner for both projects, it was tasked with sourcing fixtures, fittings, and equipment, to the value of over £90,000.

New workplace management and occupancy technology is helping organisations in other sectors make large savings on their real estate while also improving the employee and visitor experience, says Raj Krishnamurthy, CEO of agile working solutions provider, Workplace Fabric, who here explores the opportunities for such technologies in healthcare.

The first half of a two-part report on an IHEEM roundtable in November which explored ways to improve the links and communication between healthcare estates teams and those in academia, both to help drive more efficient operation of healthcare facilities, and to increase opportunities for rigorous research into key areas of building engineering services.

In this article, Hiroshi Yasuhara MD, OR Medical director at The Surgical Center at the University of Tokyo Hospital, presents what he dubs ‘a universal model for estimating the appropriate size for new operating theatres’.

A leading authority for asbestos training provision in the UK, the UK Asbestos Training Association (UKATA), is urging all public sector employees – including those in NHS hospitals – to be ‘asbestos-aware’ in order to better manage what it dubs ‘the ‘ticking time-bomb’ in thousands of public buildings.

The CEO of a Cambridge-based product development consultancy describes how he worked with surgeons at a Northumbrian hospital to establish communications links with their counterparts at a Tanzanian facility.

A British commercial boiler manufacturer looks at the key considerations for designing ‘safe, reliable, and efficient’ hot water systems for healthcare facilities, and at minimising the major risk factors for the growth and proliferation of harmful waterborne bacteria within them.

Corby-based Creative Ironmongery specialises in ‘designing and creating problem-solving products that save money and deliver exceptional performance, even in the most challenging environments’. It claims to be ‘revolutionising standards in architectural ironmongery’.

Tarkett, a global manufacturer of ‘sustainable and innovative’ flooring solutions, will demonstrate the use of VR-EP (Virtual Reality Empathy Platform) at Design in Mental Health 2019.

Integrating nurse call with lighting in the patient environment can have significant benefits for patient safety, wellbeing, and workflow efficiency. Matt Clutton, Mechanical Product Design manager at Static Systems Group, a specialist provider of healthcare communication and bedhead services trunking solutions, explores the latest developments in this field, and discusses the role of lighting in hospital wards.