One of the most complex multi-phase construction projects I have ever worked on’, is how main contractor Mansell’s Neil Rowlands, project manager on a £17 million project to re-build and extend the Accident & Emergency Department and Fracture Clinic at Essex’s busy Basildon University Hospital, describes the now almost completed ProCure21 scheme.

Two independently conducted surveys on sustainability – one into the ‘views and values’ of NHS ‘leaders’, and the other questioning the public about the importance of the ‘green agenda’ in the NHS, and their opinions on how the service might most effectively reduce its carbon footprint, form the basis of Sustainability in the NHS: Health Check 2012, a new NHS Sustainable Development Unit (NHS SDU) publication.

Next year will see the completion of a 10-year new build and redevelopment project to create central Norway’s largest regional hospital, in Trondheim, providing medical services for over 200,000 local people, and a further 450,000 inhabitants from the wider region.

Making healthcare provision more sustainable against a backdrop where ‘even the sceptics are admitting the Earth will face cataclysmic change if the economy and environment are not re-aligned’, maintaining safe, sustainable care environments while experiencing ‘a reform programme so big that you can see it from space’.

Roger Humphreys, managing director of Charter Specialist Security, a specialist supplier of ’built-in’ roller shutters, argues that, with the ability to be effectively ‘integrated’ into the fabric of a building, and availability in a wide range of ‘exciting’ colours and finishes, modern security shutter systems are a world away from the ‘often ugly and purely functional’ designs many will immediately picture when they consider using such items to protect their properties and their contents against attack.

Phil Green, senior project engineer at independent building services company, Shepherd Engineering Services (SES), describes SES’s creation a new ‘state-of-the-art’, £4.5 million, high dependency unit (HDU) at The James Cook University Hospital, Middlesbrough.

Graham McCorkindale, who heads the Health and Wellbeing strand at multi-disciplinary architecture, town planning, interior design, and landscape architecture practice, Keppie Design, examines how architects can best support the NHS at a time of major change by refocusing design skills hitherto focused on creating new healthcare facilities on the need to work within the existing estate – ‘maximising utilisation and getting best value from any available spend’.

In recent years, London’s Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust has undertaken a number of ward refurbishments aimed at meeting the future requirements of the hospital head on.

Martin Wilkinson, national sales manager at system protection specialist, Spirotech UK, highlights the ‘potential negative consequences’ of value engineering in heating system specification in the healthcare sector, and argues that system protection products such as de-aerators and dirt separators have considerable value in preventative maintenance, and in helping to extend the useful life of both the system as a whole, and its vital parts.

Joss Elliott, branch manager, Warrington, at national roofing contractor, Bracknell Roofing, looks at some of the ways that roofs can help health sector specifiers reduce a building’s carbon footprint.

According to many published studies, ‘ducting in ventilation and air-conditioning are largely overlooked and ignored, as they are out of sight and out of mind’, despite mounting evidence indicating a higher risk in spreading airborne infections’.1-6

An honest account of some of the lessons learned in how to protect patients, staff, and visitors, against waterborne Pseudomonas aeruginosa by effectively monitoring a large healthcare facility’s water supply, identifying potential ‘trigger points’.

Keeping track of thousands of pieces of equipment in a busy hospital environment is a considerable challenge, but, according to RFID tagging and asset tracking specialist, Harland Simon, RFID technology can make the task considerably simpler.

How can estates managers guarantee uninterrupted surgical provision during refurbishment projects, or boost capacity when waiting lists look dangerously at risk?

In an article that first appeared in the August 2013 issue of HEJ’s sister magazine, The Clinical Services Journal, John Sandham IEng MIET MIHEEM, discusses the need to put in place effective healthcare technology management policies, and highlights some of the barriers.

Jeff House, marketing and applications manager, Baxi Commercial, identifies some of the heating options available to the operators of healthcare facilities, and highlights practical examples of successful applications.

Dr Melvyn Langford C.Eng, MIMechE, MCIBSE, who worked in the NHS for nearly 40 years, including as an estates and facilities manager at several NHS Trusts, has written several previous HEJ articles on ‘systematic failures’ in the way maintenance of NHS healthcare buildings has been managed, and on what he claims is a ‘fundamental flaw’ within the national guidance for backlog maintenance (see HEJ – November 2009, September 2010, and September 2011).

In late January this year the Department of Health (DH) 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 condition of their built assets, provide premises assurance to their management Boards, and assure commissioners that healthcare is being delivered in fit-for-purpose buildings.

Vanguard Healthcare’s fleet of mobile surgical facilities has been deployed to healthcare sites throughout Europe and beyond for over a decade, providing vital additional clinical capacity when existing buildings are refurbished or upgraded, in the event of flood or fire, or simply to help hospitals cater for rising demand.

Australia has two pioneering hospital projects nearing completion – the Gold Coast University Hospital in Queensland, and the Fiona Stanley Hospital in Perth. Both of these demonstrate how a patient-centred philosophy can be applied to large-scale healthcare developments.