FEATURE ARTICLES

The newest addition to Imperial College London’s White City campus, The Sir Michael Uren Biomedical Engineering Hub, is one of Europe’s tallest laboratory buildings. Buro Happold, the project’s consultant, describes the design challenges.

An Army-trained engineer who is CEO of biomedical equipment engineering services specialist, Avensys, believes many NHS EBME departments are under-resourced and undervalued. Consequently many may be over-reliant on OEMs for equipment maintenance.

The NHS Nightingale Hospital in Exeter was the last of the eight Nightingale UK hospitals to be built. Writing exclusively for HEJ, project manager Andy Witnall, from contractor BAM, explains why it is different to others.

In this ‘question and answer’-style article, Adrian Powell, head of Property Development at NHS Property Services, discusses future NHSPS and wider NHS estates optimisation strategy ‘post-COVID-19’ with HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie.

Elaine Waggott, director of Operations for Angel Guard and Water Kinetics, and a former head of the Business Development team for Ideal Standard/Armitage Shanks, discusses some of the key risks posed by aerosol transmission of harmful pathogens.

IHEEM was among the professional engineering bodies to contribute to a ‘Rapid Review of engineering factors that will influence the spread of COVID-19 in hospital environments’ earlier this year, the results of which were unveiled in June by the RAE.

This year’s coronavirus outbreak has seen many organisations in the healthcare sphere turn their hand to non- ‘run-of-the’ mill activity as part of the wider UK effort to tackle the virus.

Many NHS Trusts have taken advantage of distributed energy technologies to reduce energy costs, improve sustainability, and improve resilience. Few, however, are making the most of newer opportunities to fully optimise their energy.

Stuart Skinner, senior Product manager at Rada, looks at what can be learnt from the initial response to COVID-19, and how those learnings can inform the role that infection control plays in the very fabric of our healthcare infrastructure.

Eugene Conroy CEng, FIHEEM, MIET, managing director of consulting engineers, Eta Projects, reports on the personal experiences of the professional team in the delivery of the NHS Nightingale Hospital London.

The creation of a decontamination ‘supercentre’ for the Royal Free which is enabling it to decontaminate and sterilise more efficiently under one roof, and also to take on work from other Trusts, required an ‘extremely complex’ plant installation.

As efforts to develop a COVID-19 vaccine continue, keyc onsiderations emerge with regards to the vaccine cold chain throughout mass distribution.

A look at the major upgrade of the HV and LV electrical infrastructure at Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary (RVI), which took over a year in planning, and a further 18 months’ work to complete.

Michael Brown, a Biomedical Services Technician based at Christchurch Public Hospital, , discusses his day-to-day job, and the important role such engineering personnel play in enabling clinicians to do ‘the real-life-saving work’.

Ann Vandycke, an architect and the head of the Technical Department at Belgian care organisation, Mintus, examines some of the latest innovations in building technologies.

Jonathan Baillie, recently spoke to David Hartley, managing director at MTX Contracts, about how modern methods of construction have become increasingly popular for a variety of healthcare buildings in recent years.

Access to a safe water supply is critical in healthcare environments, and complying with the Department of Health and Social Care’s Technical Memorandum, HTM 04-01, is crucial for estates and facilities managers, suppliers, and NHS management teams.

Dr Tim Sandle, discusses why the most up-to-date standards, known as European Norms (EN), should always be considered when selecting cleaning and disinfection products for use in hospitals and other healthcare facilities.

David Cross, head of the Technical Training Academy at Rentokil Pest Control, and Paul Casson, Technical field manager at Rentokil Specialist Hygiene, look at some of the pest control challenges facing healthcare estates teams, and how to meet them.

Antibacterial hoses incorporating a silver-based bacteriostatic additive were shown to significantly outperform additive free control hoses in reducing mean aerobic bacterial counts of Pseudomonas aeruginosa after 8-12 weeks.