The head of Health at a leading project and cost management consultancy offers his standpoint on some of the reasons for Carillion’s recent collapse, and the potential wider implications for healthcare construction and construction procurement.

Healthcare Facilities Consortium (HFC) non-executive director, Jane Riley, explains how the HFS has recently launched FM Knowledge Exchange (FMKx), a set of online tools designed to encourage collaboration and communication between healthcare organisations and estates professionals, as well as their product and service suppliers.

Having started life in 1973 as a panel bonding and worktop manufacturer, Dorset-headquartered Total Laminate Systems (TLS) has grown into one of the UK’s leading manufacturers, suppliers, and installers, of sanitary assemblies, IPS panels, and washroom systems to the healthcare, education, commercial, and leisure sectors.

Regular refurbishment of operating theatres is key to ensuring a truly fitfor-purpose 21st century surgical environment, yet estates teams must balance the need for periods of theatre closure with maintaining operational delivery and minimising disruption to patient flow.

With the NHS under increasing pressure to provide an ever improved level of service, there are plans for 7,500 existing GP practices in the UK to become 1,500 ‘Super Practices’. A specialist in the healthcare property market explains some of the issues the NHS will have to contend with.

A space vacated following a Trust’s move from paper to electronic records has been successfully converted to a new endoscopy and decontamination department.

The editor of HEJ’s sister publication, The Clinical Services Journal, discusses developing thinking on what constitutes the most effective healthcare cleaning practice.

‘Having started with an empty shell’, the team at Fortius Group developed the design of a new orthopaedic surgical centre in London’s Marylebone.

A look – by a business development manager at Howorth Air Technology – at how the advent of vapourising hydrogen peroxide as a high efficacy biocide over the past 30 years has ‘simplified and de-risked bioburden reduction’.

As part of a special IHEEM event held in Westminster late last year, IHEEM’s President updated guests on progress with the five ‘key themes’ he had set out for his Presidency on taking up the role the previous October.

The latest addition to Static Systems’ Design & Innovation Centre at its Staffordshire headquarters is a ‘pioneering’ new Concept Ward, developed with the help, support, and input, of suppliers of a wide range of different products and technologies.

Fast-track modular building specialist and turnkey construction company, MTX, recently completed its fastest modular new-build project yet – completing a new modular orthopaedic surgery and rheumatology outpatient unit at Plymouth’s Derriford Hospital in just 12 weeks from order to handover.

A report on the significant innovation – in areas ranging from plant operation to patient and staff comfort – that went into a $A66 million redevelopment project at Echuca Regional Health in Victoria, Australia.

Lee Hales, operations director at bespoke parking specialist, Indigo, outlines the company’s approach to ensuring the best possible parking experience for patients, staff, and visitors, on increasingly busy hospital sites.

Modular buildings are now a common sight on NHS estates around the UK as Trusts battle to meet the requirements of their patients and their staff alike. Here, Steve Bowers, founder and managing director of Solutions Asset Finance, and the company’s commercial director, Philip Green, explain ‘how flexible funding solutions can match the quality of today’s modular building technology’.

A project manager at a Dutch engineering, design, and project management consultancy discusses how building design can impact clinical outcomes at specialist treatment centres.

Wandsworth Healthcare believes technological advances and the growing ability to integrate software and services across medical systems will become ever more vital in improving care and operational efficiency.

A recent project at Glenfield Hospital in Leicester has seen Interserve redevelop and improve the hospital’s vascular, cardiovascular, and angiography facilities, with the construction of a new hybrid theatre. The architects, P+HS, report.

HEJ reports on the ongoing £485 m scheme to redevelop and replace key buildings at Brighton’s historic Royal Sussex County Hospital – one of the largest Treasury-funded NHS projects in recent years.

At Healthcare Estates 2016, the DH’s director-general of Finance gave a candid assessment of the current state of NHS finances, and presented his view on how the healthcare estates and facilities community can contribute effectively to the drive to ‘constrain cost growth’.