FEATURE ARTICLES

David Jones, director of Estates, Facilities, and Capital Development at University Hospital Southampton, and a fourth year PhD candidate, is researching the impact of the growing backlog maintenance level across England on patient safety incidents. He is looking both at the level of incidents directly linked to backlog maintenance, and at how ‘an aged estate’ is affecting staff in undertaking their work, and how this ultimately impacts patient safety. Here he discusses the key factors when looking at the impact of backlog maintenance, and explores what else we should be doing to improve our understanding of it, and reduce the severity of the issue.

In September’s HEJ we ran the first half of an article on an interesting and forthright discussion at a roundtable event held in mid-June at the Leeds offices of solicitors, Clarion. This covered some of the key elements in, and far-reaching ramifications of, the Building Safety Act 2022, which came into force in October 2023 – both for the healthcare construction chain, and healthcare engineering and estate management personnel. Here HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie, reports on the event’s second half.

With climate change being combated on many fronts, Professor Stefano Capolongo, director of the Architecture, Built Environment and Construction Engineering Department, and Scientific coordinator of the Design & Health Lab and JRP Healthcare Infrastructures, at Politecnico di Milano, discusses the re-thinking and implementation of practices in the construction industry – which is one of the biggest contributors to climate change. He also considers how medical facilities can be designed and built to be more sustainable through the ‘Next Generation Hospital’.

Simon Everett, a Senior lecturer in the Built Environment at Wrexham University, discusses some of the challenges of managing ‘legacy’ AHU systems across the healthcare estate, and some of the key steps for healthcare engineers to consider to minimise the risks of such equipment failing.

Reliable, modern electrical infrastructure is key to the optimal running of modern hospitals, but with technological advancements demanding more resources, and reliance on ageing utility systems and IT networks, many NHS Estates and Facilities teams face an increasing challenge to balance existing effectiveness using limited budgets, and the need to effectively plan for future upgrades. Chris Rose, Business manager with Quartzelec, the electrical engineering service-provider, explains how it is helping a number of Trusts plan and cost-effectively implement ‘future-ready’ infrastructure solutions.

An estimated one million patient samples are transported by pneumatic tube systems in British hospitals every week. Ensuring that these samples and other critical items arrive at their intended destination quickly and without fail is the job of the companies that supply and install these increasingly complex networks of plastic tubes. Here, Tom Hughes, managing director of Aerocom (UK), explains how pneumatic tube systems work, and how they have become the ‘invisible heroes’ behind driving efficiencies in the nation’s health service.

Elise Maynard, independent adviser for water safety, and Chair of the Armitage Shanks Water Safety Forum, emphasises the need for multidisciplinary competence when it comes to safely managing and maintaining healthcare premises’ water systems.

Giles Hartley, Equipment Project manager for the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust’s Hospitals of the Future Project – who has a wealth of experience in the procurement and management of medical and non-medical equipment for healthcare facilities – explains the critical importance of developing a robust equipment strategy from the outset when embarking on designing and delivering new such facilities, and particularly complex, large-scale hospital projects.

HEJ reports on the journey taken recently by provider of specialist AE services, DRLC, to gain accreditation to the ISO 9001 process improvement, and the ISO 14001 environmental, standards, working with Richard Dolman, MD at Glade Consulting, whose specialist services include quality management system implementation and internal auditing.

Research indicates NHS EFM staff spend an average of 11 hours each week navigating disparate information sources for answers to common challenges. Addressing this inefficiency, a team from the University of Cambridge, supported by IHEEM, has developed an AI-driven platform ‘to provide instant, evidence-based answers to technical queries’. Carl-Magnus von Behr, Director of innex.ai, unveiled the system at the recent IHEEM Wales Regional Conference at the ICC Wales. Here he, CTO and co-founder of innex.ai, Dr Jan Blümel, and final-year medical student and researcher at the University of Southampton, Alan Saji, report.

Lighting design consultant, Dr Shelley James – who will speak at the one-day IHEEM ‘Innovation in Healthcare’ conference at Uttoxeter Racecourse on 11 September* – shares the latest evidence for the return on investment in lighting that supports the body clock in terms not only of improved patient health outcomes and better staff engagement, but also lower electricity bills.

The Building Safety Act 2022, which became law in October 2023 following Dame Judith Hackitt’s Building a Safer Future Report and the lessons from London’s Grenfell Tower Fire, is expected to profoundly impact all players within the construction supply chain. It also places additional responsibilities on those who operate and maintaining certain buildings – including many in healthcare – for ensuring all aspects of their safety and compliance. A recent roundtable in Leeds saw some of the key considerations for the healthcare construction supply chain and the healthcare EFM profession discussed. HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie, reports.

Apex Wiring Solutions Sales director, Paul Hopps, outlines how the leading modular wiring manufacturer is – as he puts it – ‘helping to revolutionise construction of healthcare facilities’, and champions the many benefits that the company says modular wiring offers the sector.

Mark Gibson, Managing director – Healthcare, at Sir Robert McAlpine, looks at some of the considerable benefits that a growing arsenal of digital construction tools can bring – both to designers and builders of healthcare facilities and the end-client – be it an NHS Trust or private healthcare provider. He stresses that the data collected during project delivery can also be highly valuable to the end-user once the building has been completed.

Charlie Hinchey, Intelligent Buildings Solution consultant for healthcare at Trend Control Systems, explains how Milton Keynes University Hospital is working with Trend Controls, AES, and Haltian, to understand the benefits of deploying one of the first digital twin systems in an NHS healthcare setting.

Richard Mazuch, an architect, the director of Design, Research and Innovation for Arcadis, and the founder of TH!NK – the research and development arm of IBI (with whom Arcadis merged in late 2022), discusses some of the key learnings from paediatric healthcare design – in both physical and mental healtcare settings – for areas such as teaching, and vice-versa.

George Pritchard, Technical director at Scenariio, a Derby-based smart buildings and IT specialist, discusses the company’s work to install LED lights, environmental sensors, and an emergency lighting system, at The Saplings, a new children’s bereavement counselling centre at Treetops Hospice in Risley, Derbyshire. The ‘human-centric’ lights adjust their colour temperature throughout the day, replicating the changing white tones of daylight – from a blue-white in the mid-morning/early afternoon, to warmer yellow-white in the late afternoon/evening, complementing both the young occupants’ own inbuilt circadian rhythms, and their activities within the centre, by changing the colour temperature to match whatever they are doing.

Ashley Morpeth, an Authorising Engineer at ETA Projects, and an experienced health and safety professional with particular expertise in the field, discusses some of the key guidance on formulating emergency and rescue plans for working at height, including rooftop working.

Geoff Halliday, Business consultant at WB Power Services, discusses the practical application of the guidance in HTM 06 to standby generators, the variance with how diesel generators are designed and built, and how some of the most common apparent ambiguities or variances can readily be overcome. He also discusses the generators’ critical role in the event of a utility power failure.

Jordan Bartlett, a Facility & Seismic Resilience consultant at Proactive Design in Australia, considers how those responsible for keeping plant and equipment safe and secure in healthcare facilities need – where their region is at risk of such occurrences – to prepare a Business Continuity Plan to cater for natural disasters such as floods and earthquakes, with a particular focus on experience in Australia and New Zealand.