FEATURE ARTICLES

Healthcare facilities have complex and stringent design requirements. With specification of interior finishes key, the UK Sales manager at Construction Specialties UK considers some of the main design considerations and legislative requirements.

As high streets decline, empty premises result in lower footfall for neighbouring businesses. But many hospitals are full, with little means to physically expand. A recent webinar presented by Health Spaces explored a potential solution.

The increase in the UK cost of living has placed unprecedented pressure on operating budgets for NHS facilities and service-providers alike. An associate director at Archus outlines the ways NHS Estates and Facilities teams can address inflationary pressures, and protect service delivery standards, while maintaining the principles of partnership and social value.

Two new elective orthopaedic theatres at Merlin Park University Hospital in Galway have been equipped with Bender’s ‘state-of-the-art’ equipment, in a turnkey ‘supply and install’ project.

Parkhead Health & Care Centre, under construction in Glasgow, will become Scotland’s first working Net Zero carbon health and social care facility, improving the lives of some 200,000 people.

Leading microbiologists from the Central Sterilising Club look back at some of the key developments in surgical instrument decontamination over the past six decades.

The CEO of the Sustainability Energy Authority of Ireland on the drive to reduce the carbon footprint of the country’s public sector healthcare estate.

Dean Sullivan, Deputy CEO and Chief Strategy Officer at Ireland’s Health Service Executive, stresses the importance of the public sector taking a lead in the drive toward Net Zero.

Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has signed up to Wassenburg’s pay-per-use scheme in replacing four endoscope washer-disinfectors (EWDs).

How a provider of software, consultancy, training, support, and IT and document management solutions, helped the Digital Innovation and Strategic Estates teams at Milton Keynes University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust ‘kick off their BIM journey’, and improve the data collection process.

Matt Morse, a specialist in Legionella control and water treatment, discusses ‘competence’, with a particular focus on Legionella control, what the term signifies, how it can be measured, and why it is so important in a patient safety-critical field.

Rina Pandya, head of People Transformation and Culture at NHS Property Services, discusses the importance of promoting the success of women in healthcare estates and facilities management – traditionally a male-dominated sector.

The risks posed to patients from pathogens found in hospital environments, and the need for those tasked with cleaning them to be adequately trained, and equipped with the latest technology, are highlighted by Dr Mark Garvey, consultant clinical scientist in Microbiology.

Bobby Conroy, Architect director at BDP’s Dublin studio, describes how the design of Ireland’s New Children’s Hospital has been developed around a ‘child and family-centred identity’, and explains how standardisation and digital technology have played a central role in the delivery of the project.

At IHEEM’s 2022 Authorising Engineers conference, Brian Kirk, from the Institute’s Decontamination Technical Platform, and Paul Harris, Chair of the IHEEM Electrical Technical Platform, looked at the evolution of standards within healthcare engineering and estate management.

The Final of the Institution of Engineering and Technology’s national Faraday Challenge – an annual competition to encourage more youngsters to study and consider STEM careers – took place at Liverpool’s Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in June, with IHEEM as the year’s ‘theme partner’.

A look by Australian academics and a plumbing and safety equipment specialist at some of the risks to hospital plumbing systems from both lead contamination and the build-up and spread of opportunistic waterborne pathogens

Gregor Riese of the Opira Group discusses the effectiveness of ultraviolet airstream disinfection in healthcare facilities, drawing on a study at a hospital in Pennsylvania which demonstrated a more than 90% reduction in airborne and surface pathogen levels in UV-treated zones compared with non-UV treated zones.

The importance of your emergency lighting system should not be underestimated. Simply put, lives depend on it – but how can you be sure your system will perform when it’s most needed?

Edward Williams of Edward Williams Architects, and Sheila Carney, director of Scott Tallon Walker Architects, discuss designing the NHS in England’s second proton beam therapy centre, for University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, in a central London location – close to existing infrastructure such as ‘tube’ lines – and explain how the major challenges were overcome.