FEATURE ARTICLES

The Chief Executive of the Royal Academy of Engineering reports on the encouraging and committed response from engineers to a call for engineers ‘to help identify solutions, organisations, and contacts’ that could support the response to COVID-19

A Director at Anglia Ruskin University argues that while NHS personnel have undertaken tremendous work during the coronavirus outbreak, a re-think is needed on making healthcare facilities more resilient to events such as pandemics.

Recently, handwashing has taken on a significant role to prevent the spread of pathogens and maintain the nation’s collective health.

With the COVID-19 outbreak, associated steps to ensure patient, staff, and visitor safety, are currently likely to be uppermost in the minds of healthcare estates teams.

Paul Musgrove, UK Development manager at shower and washroom solution specialist, Conti+ UK, explains how the company is playing its part with a new range of ‘disinfection solutions’.

With the UK currently not ‘on track’ to achieve the fourth or fifth carbon reduction targets introduced under the Climate Change Act, Stephen Lowndes, Technical director at the Carbon & Energy Fund discusses.

Static Systems Group, explains how – working with contractor, Skanska, TB+A, and a number of other suppliers – the company masterminded the ‘bespoke’ design, supply, and installation of a complex and comprehensive fire and alarm management system.

Michael Joubert, takes a look – based on his many years’ experience in the field – at the priorities and requirements when undertaking fixed wire testing and reporting, and at some of the pitfalls if best practice is not followed.

Laura Smith, explains the legal and regulatory requirements that are involved in setting up emergency hospitals.

Martyn Barlow, Estates and Engineering manager at the Falkland Islands Government’s King Edward VII Memorial Hospital (KEMH), describes some of the particular challenges for he and his team with the outbreak of the COVID 19 epidemic

How do you build a 650-bed hospital in two weeks? Garry Bowker, Regional director of Integrated Health Projects (IHP) and VINCI Construction UK, tells the ‘behind-the-scenes’ story of the NHS Nightingale Hospital North West in Manchester.

The healthcare sector is facing an unprecedented set of challenges that include providing an ever higher quality of service without increasing costs. Healthcare estates and facilities management personnel are among those being tasked with ‘delivering more from less’, and are increasingly also being asked to step up their work on sustainability.

An Army-trained electrical and mechanical engineer whose father produced one of the first AGS receiving systems based on the BSRIA design commissioned by the DHSS, which was later incorporated into the British Standard, and who spent many boyhood hours turning and milling in his father’s factory, has seen his hard work, determination, and regular long hours in a 35-year career pay off.

The Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust’s vision for a new standalone decontamination centre in Enfield to bring together such services from its three hospitals – some housed in ageing and cramped facilities – under one roof in one modern, well-equipped ‘supercentre’, was successfully realised last year thanks to a partnership with CFES as main contractor, and specialist equipment supplier, Getinge. Louise Frampton, editor of HEJ’s sister publication, The Clinical Services Journal, reports on the impressive new £14 m facility.

Dr Tim Sandle, a chartered biologist with a first-class honours degree in Applied Biology and a Masters degree in education, who obtained his doctorate from Keele University, and is an honorary tutor with the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Manchester, discusses some of the key considerations when choosing from the plethora of different cleaning and disinfection products available for use in hospitals and other healthcare facilities.

The impacts on health and wellbeing of circadian lighting in buildings are being investigated in two research projects – one completed and one ongoing – by building science centre, BRE. One compares the effects on people of a dynamic lighting system, and the other examines the biophilic refurbishment of a building, including the role of lighting.

Encouraging able new entrants, and particularly young people, into healthcare engineering and estates management, and wider STEM roles, is an ongoing priority for IHEEM, and one of the key strategic goals for CEO, Pete Sellars.

Macy Koochek, Golnaz Rakhshan, and Barbara Budenz of Kasian Architecture Interior Design and Planning – which claims to be one of the world’s ‘top 100’ architecture, interior design, and planning firms – discuss how two recently completed healthcare facilities in Canada have been designed to meet the needs of populations primarily identifying as indigenous.

A clinic in South Africa’s Western Cape in an arid climactic zone that serves a local population battling for financial survival has been built with an emphasis on balancing reduced energy consumption with acceptable indoor temperatures.

Craig Smith, FIH, MRIPH, head of Corporate Affairs at ISS, and National Chair of the Hospital Caterers Association, explains how ISS Healthcare addressed the challenge of being invited to provide the overall soft FM lead at the new NHS Nightingale Hospital London in the capital’s Docklands.