Speaking in the opening keynote address on the second morning of last October’s Healthcare Estates 2019, Professor Michail Kagioglou, who is a Dean and Professor at the University of Huddersfield, addressed the subject, ‘Total delivery of healthcare infrastructure for patients, users, and communities’, and the work that he and his team have been undertaking around this goal – including with external partners – over recent months. HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie, reports.

A sanitaryware and infection control specialist who gained much of his 30 years’ plumbing and water hygiene expertise and experience at Armitage Shanks before establishing his own consultancy, has set up two new UK businesses to market two ‘ground-breaking new plumbing products’ aimed squarely at healthcare facilities.

Two separate construction schemes within the Lincoln Wing at Leeds’s St James’s University Hospital – one involving refurbishing and updating two ageing ground floor wards to enable them to meet current clinical practice standards, improve the patient environment, and deliver lean methodology in support services, and the second to create two new decant theatres on the floor above to accommodate surgery while existing theatres are upgraded, have been successfully completed.

Richard Gibson, Technical director at Pinpoint, takes a look at some of the broad range of personal staff attack alarm systems now on the market, and considers the ‘pros and cons’ of some of the main technologies.

Craig Fleming, Sector leader for NHS & Government Services at Aggreko, discusses how temporary power solutions ‘can alleviate pressure on a beleaguered NHS estate while also helping it to meet longer-term sustainability targets’.

A major new hospital that will transform cancer care in a region that is one of the worst affected nationally by the disease opened its doors in the heart of Liverpool last June

Robert Lawton, Business Development director at Coventry-based Lawton Tubes, reportedly the UK’s largest medical gas copper tube distributor, describes some of the company’s recent work supplying such tubing to Nightingale Hospitals

In January this year HEJ conducted a survey on behalf of business utility and sustainability consultancy, Inenco. It sought to identify how far advanced NHS Trusts across England England were in developing and implementing a ‘Green Plan’

Cameron Hawkins, head of Energy and Environment at NHS Property Services, discusses how the business is set to reach the NHS’s net zero carbon goals.

A software system which helps heating and cooling system designers make more accurate engineering calculations using ‘dynamic simulation’ to show how their installation will perform under ‘real-world’ conditions.

Three Kemper personnel consider common challenges in maintaining healthcare water supplies at a safe temperature, and in a safe and hygienic condition, that minimises the risk of growth and proliferation of potentially hazardous waterborne pathogens.

Looking at the impact that the coronavirus has had on the healthcare estate landscape, Graeme Tucker, gives his standpoint on how the sector can address recent power protection design challenges and mitigate risk more effectively.

A software system which helps heating and cooling system designers make more accurate engineering calculations using ‘dynamic simulation’ to show how their installation will perform under ‘real-world’ conditions has been deployed at an Essex hospital

In March, with the coronavirus pandemic ramping up, Charing Cross Hospital found its existing oxygen VIE was beginning to struggle to meet demand.

Thomas Rodger, MEng MIET, at AECOM, describes the critical first 48 hours of work converting a conference venue into Glasgow’s COVID-19 hospital, NHS Louisa Jordan, and how he believes the experience can bring about positive change in future projects

With the advancement of technologies, and the need for greater accountability, John Prendergast, senior Decontamination engineer, , discusses the current training systems for engineers working on equipment used to decontaminate medical devices.

Effective use of technology can significantly impact the design and day-to-day running of NHS estates, with the power to make buildings more efficient, create income generation opportunities, and help ‘future-proof’ the estate long-term

Fire safety is a huge concern for hospitals, which rely on running smoothly to keep waiting times to a minimum and ensure that patients, staff, and visitors, are safe. However, as such facilities continue to evolve, they can face a growing number of new fire safety challenges, with advances in technology and demand for better services placing a heavy reliance on cables to keep equipment and their supporting infrastructure running safely. Paul Gretton, lead marketing manager – Cable Management, at Legrand UK & Ireland, explains why using effective and future-proof firestopping in healthcare environments is crucial.

With the percutaneous devices used in interventional radiology departments becoming ever more complex, and more and more minimally invasive procedures being undertaken in conventional operating theatres, a new ‘breed’ of so-called ‘hybrid’ theatres has emerged, and is now a feature of many hospitals worldwide. A look at the optimal design of such theatres.

In mid-2010 the Estates Maintenance Team at the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust embarked on a £30 million, five-year project to significantly enhance the resilience and block capacity of the electrical distribution infrastructure at St James’s University Hospital, one of the Yorkshire city’s two main acute healthcare facilities.