FEATURE ARTICLES

Healthcare providers are using digital signage and IPTV systems to manage ongoing COVID challenges, and subsequently recognising how AV systems can improve the patient experience, says Colin Farquhar, senior vice-president, Sales, at VITEC, a specialist in end-to-end video streaming.

The National Fire Safety lead at NHSE/I explains how NHS Trusts can review their fire alarm systems and implement effective protocols to ensure that risk reduction in this area meets statutory requirements.

In March 2021 John Prendergast, MIHEEM, an Authorising Engineer (Decontamination), and Dr Jimmy Walker, Chair of the Central Sterilising Club, established, and have since led, a Working Group to review guidance for ventilation requirements in endoscope decontamination facilities.

IHEEM-registered AE (Water), Steve Mount, reviews the recently produced British Standard for risk assessment of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and other waterborne pathogens in healthcare premises, and the challenges facing organisations in complying with it.

Starkstrom has its UK office and manufacturing facility in Syston, Leicester. The company is in its 51st year of offering integrated solutions for the design, supply, installation, and commissioning, of electrical safety solutions for Group 2 medical locations, and infrastructure and clinical products to NHS and private hospitals for operating theatres and ‘Recovery’, Critical Care, Emergency Departments, Endoscopy, and training facilities.

As specifications are passed down lengthy chains, sometimes the intent can be lost. Adam Fox, director at vibration isolation specialist, Mason UK, offers three key principles for writing a good specification.

Jo Harris, Commercial Finance UK Sales director, Siemens Financial Services in the UK, discusses some of the benefits to both to occupiers and users of increasingly ‘smart’ healthcare buildings, and the role of ‘smart financing’ in their construction and operation.

Poor specification, installation, and maintenance of fire doorsets can have devastating consequences in the event of a fire – but especially so in very highly trafficked and occupied facilities such as hospitals. Here, David Hindle, head of Door Closer Sales at Assa Abloy Opening Solutions UK & Ireland, outlines the key considerations for healthcare estates personnel when choosing fire doorsets.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group for Healthcare Infrastructure recently discussed the need to invest in primary care, as well as acute hospital settings, for improved forward planning for greater NHS resilience, and for enhanced healthcare infrastructure in poorer, disadvantaged communities.

Arcadis’ Sarah Miles and Smriti Singh discuss a recent project with an acute NHS Trust to discover how the pandemic has changed perceptions of hospital workspace, and ‘how we can start to implement change, both in physical space, and also in cultural views of hospital roles’.

A new 48-bedded Critical Care building at Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital, funded by the Department of Health and Social Care, and built by Modern Methods of Construction specialist, MTX, for Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, has been completed in just 15 months – from initial design to handover.

NHS Trusts across England were required to submit a Green Plan by mid-January as part of the drive toward a Net Zero Carbon NHS. Beth Goodwin, an NHS specialist at Inenco – which has been helping a number deliver their Plans – discusses the approaches taken, and some as yet underexploited carbon reduction opportunities.

Jimmy Walker PhD, BSc, a microbiologist with over 30 years’ experience in water microbiology and decontamination, discusses the important aspects of Legionnaires’ disease for those with responsibility for hospital water systems, and what we need to understand about the presence of this waterborne pathogen in such systems to safeguard patients.

Canadian journalist Rebecca Melnyk describes the light, airy, and spacious design of what is reportedly Canada’s first ‘smart’ hospital – the new Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital in Vaughan, Ontario.

Biophilic design’s benefits for both acute and mental healthcare settings are well-recognised. South African interior designer, Antoinette Greeff, discusses the fundamentals of the ‘art’, and explains how the principles were deployed at a new assisted ward at a psychiatric facility.

NHS Orkney has recently extended its use of neQis independent monitoring solutions, adding continuous particle monitoring for the cleanroom of its central decontamination unit.

Gavin Thompson, former CEO of engineering consultancy, Buro Happold, explains that the business is ‘transforming how healthcare estates collaborate… by adoption of digital innovation’.

HTM 06-01 is one of the most recognised sets of guidelines in the healthcare sector. Samuel Rea, Healthcare divisional manager at Power Control, emphasises the importance of secondary and tertiary power supplies, drawing on an example of a recent project undertaken by the company at Scarborough General Hospital, where it stepped in rapidly to help when two of the main generators failed.

Antimicrobial solutions specialist, BioCote, on how to help guard against microbially induced corrosion from microbes such as bacteria, mould, and fungi.

Jess Twemlow, associate director (Sustainability and Circular Economy), at global strategic and environmental consultancy, Ricardo, argues that the NHS in England’s Net Zero ambitions will only be achieved ‘with radical and immediate engagement of the clinical community’, including work around sustainable models of care, procurement, food and catering, and medicines.