Peter Sellars, the Department of Health’s deputy director of Gateway Reviews, Estates and Facilities Division, explains to HEJ editor Jonathan Baillie how and why the new NHS Premises Assurance Model (NHS PAM) was developed, and describes how recent piloting by several Trusts generated “extremely positive” feedback in advance of the Model’s wider roll-out.

One of the key priorities identified by new IHEEM President Paul Kingsmore as the Institute goes forward is a more open approach to communicating with members. Very much in this vein, last month’s IHEEM AGM saw the chairmen of several key Institute committees report on some of their particular committees’ key achievements and activities over the previous 12 months. HEJ reports.

The Teenage Cancer Trust (TCT), the charity devoted to improving the lives of teenager cancer sufferers, has released the initial results of an independent study which it says prove that a high quality built environment, of the calibre seen in its 13 existing UK teenage cancer units, not only boosts patient morale by giving sick youngsters a feeling of control, but also encourages young cancer sufferers to complete their treatment, significantly impacting the number of positive outcomes. Jonathan Baillie reports on the study’s London launch.

Leaving the site in a better condition than when they left it, and minimising the development’s impact on the local scenery, reflecting the area’s history and natural heritage in the design, and exploiting the stunning location and views to provide a relaxing, therapeutic care environment, were among the goals for architects Nightingale Associates when they drew up plans for the Ysbyty Alltwen community hospital, spectacularly positioned high on the foothills of Snowdonia.

March’s “Big Bang” Science fair, a two-day event held in Manchester aimed at encouraging young people to consider a career in the engineering and science sector, saw IHEEM head office personnel and North-West branch members field a wide range of questions from young visitors on the role and importance of healthcare engineering and estates management in a modern-day health service.

Work has just been completed on a multi-million pound development at a Derbyshire hospital to provide a state-of-the-art facility for elderly mental health patients.

Bruce Johnson, senior vice-president at the Houston, Texas offices of internationally-recognised HKS Architects, examines the considerable physical challenge of accommodating sizeable proton external beam radiation therapy equipment into hospitals, drawing on work undertaken by the practice to date in designing hospitals to cater for such sizeable machinery.

Construction of the new 513-bed PFI-funded hospital in Pembury near Tunbridge Wells in Kent, a £227 million acute healthcare facility that, on its completion in the autumn of 2011, will be the UK’s first to offer 100% single-bed en suite accommodation, is ahead of schedule, “thanks to excellent teamwork and careful planning”.

Surgeons and clinical staff, theatre circulation and scrub personnel, and anaesthetists, as well as the estates and facilities team at Kent’s Maidstone Hospital, have worked with specialist supplier of integrated audio, video, and instrumentation systems for the operating room, Olympus Medical, to develop what is claimed is among the UK’s most advanced operating theatres yet built for laparoscopic and endoscopic surgery.

According to Professor Sanaz Litkouhi, Ph.D, an assistant professor of architecture at the Payam-Noor University of Tehran, the general lack of emphasis on providing suitable activity facilities in children’s hospitals affects both recovering child patients’ state of mind and the overall healing process.

Sue Frith, deputy head of the NHS Security Management Service (NHS SMS), explains the organisation’s important role in advising, and supporting, security staff at NHS hospitals in dealing with incidents ranging from verbal abuse to serious violence and aggression.

An ongoing upgrading of clinical handwashing facilities at its hospitals by NHS Lanarkshire is seeing the Scottish Health Board replace, in many cases, ageing basins and taps subject to Healthcare Environment Inspectorate (HEI) criticism, with standardised modules comprising a clinical basin, Horne Engineering’s Optitherm thermostatic tap, and soap and towel dispensers, all mounted on a single integrated panel structure.

An ongoing upgrading of clinical handwashing facilities at its hospitals by NHS Lanarkshire is seeing the Scottish Health Board replace, in many cases, ageing basins and taps subject to Healthcare Environment Inspectorate (HEI) criticism with standardised modules comprising a clinical basin, Horne Engineering’s Optitherm thermostatic tap, and soap and towel dispensers, all mounted on a single integrated panel structure.

Addressing a 220-strong audience at London’s Barts Hospital at the launch of a new NHS Sustainable Development Unit (NHS SDU) publication, Route Map for Sustainable Health, senior NHS and NHS SDU speakers highlighted the magnitude of the challenge faced by the service over the next 5-40 years in meeting its carbon reduction targets, and set out how the new “Route Map” could provide important pointers to help all in the healthcare arena operate more sustainably in the broadest sense.

Speed of construction, with significantly less disruption to on-site activity, and continuity of a wide range of orthopaedic surgery, coupled with excellent prior experience of the modular build specialist’s expertise at the site, led the project team for a suite of four new orthopaedic operating theatres at the Leicester General Hospital to again select Stockport-based MTX Contracts for the job.

IHEEM’s AE (D) Panel plays an important role in managing and administering the UK’s only official register of such specialist personnel, and indeed it is the Panel that selects qualified candidates for registration, interviews those considered “the right material”, and confers registered AE (D) status on those that Panel members feel have the right combination of professional experience and expertise, academic qualifications, and knowledge, to fulfil the role.

Adrian Popplewell, an associate at a multi-disciplinary engineering consultancy Ramboll Acoustics, discusses the importance of good acoustics in the design of truly fit-for-purpose 21st Century healthcare buildings, agreeing that, as Florence Nightingale wrote in 1859: “Unnecessary noise is the most cruel absence of care which can be inflicted on the sick or well”.

Ronan Quinn, managing director of interior construction specialist Ardmac, describes the challenges of building and fitting out a new cleanroom laboratory for blood and bone marrow therapeutic treatment at Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital Crumlin in Dublin.

This October saw the launch of the new ProCure21+ National Framework under which, the Department of Health (DH) team behind the new scheme claims, the NHS can potentially save a further £200 million of public money on top of the substantial sums saved under predecessor, ProCure21, via faster, more streamlined procurement, design, planning, and construction, of publicly-funded healthcare schemes.

Speaking at last October’s Healthcare Estates 2010 conference in Manchester, Peter Haggarty, assistant director, Health Facilities Scotland, outlined some of the key steps and priorities for large healthcare providers seeking to establish and implement an effective asset management strategy, focusing particularly on work ongoing in this area in the Scottish public health service.