FEATURE ARTICLES

Kevin Brown, managing director at BlueSky Wireless, and ICON’s Richard Salvage, highlight ‘the potentially catastrophic consequences’ of unattended alarms in healthcare. Here they explore why messaging, automation, and monitoring are crucial factors in mitigating risk.

Carl Knight, managing director of leading heat transfer specialist, Fulton, discusses the critical importance of Technical Boiler House Risk Assessments (TBHRAs) for NHS Trusts and healthcare facilities, exploring relevant regulations, assessment requirements for both fuel-fired and electrically-heated steam boilers, and what he dubs ‘the severe implications of non-compliance’.

Carl Mitten, a co-owner and Director of MIG Group, discusses the company’s establishment of a new hub for clinical design in Altrincham, ‘dedicated to revolutionising how medical settings are conceived and constructed’.

The electrical infrastructure of many major healthcare sites was designed in a different era, and has evolved over decades in reaction to changing circumstances and advances in technology. Ed McNaught, Healthcare specialist at TGA Consulting Engineers, discusses some of the key steps to take to ensure that such infrastructure can provide resilient standby power supply to 100% of clinical facilities, and, increasingly, can also accommodate embedded renewable generation.

Alasdair Ben Dixon, a chartered architect and Partner at architecture and design practice, Collective Works, discusses the firm’s recent work with local organisations to design and create social prescribing hubs that give patients more agency in their own health outcomes – by making clear the activities which can most benefit their wellbeing. He explains that ‘by addressing the root causes of ill health, and enhancing overall wellbeing, social prescribing has emerged as a powerful tool in the healthcare landscape’.

COVID-19 highlighted gaps in public knowledge about infection prevention, emphasising the importance of Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) in healthcare design. In this first article in a three-part series, associate director for Healthcare at HLM Architects, Neil Orpwood, discusses IPC in healthcare design, and specifically the importance of early collaboration among designers, architects, and IPC teams in creating safe healthcare environments. He also asks how our healthcare IPC design has adapted four years on from COVID-19.

Dr Simon Pybus, a specialist registrar in medical microbiology and infectious diseases in Glasgow, George McCracken, head of Estates Risk and Environment at Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, and Dr Michael Weinbren, Consultant Medical Microbiologist, and Specialist Advisor Microbiology, New Hospital Programme, discuss the key role of the construction supply chain and manufacturers in the fight against antimicrobial resistance.

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.

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.

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.