FEATURE ARTICLES

David Broderick, Operations director for ISG’s Engineering Services business, discusses why he believes construction technology ‘holds the key to decentralised healthcare provision’.

Chris McElroy, Specification and Design consultant at Altro, discusses some of the fundamentals for achieving good acoustics in healthcare settings, to the benefit of all users, with a particular focus on the role that well-designed floorcoverings can play.

Daniel Pitcher, managing director and Authorising Engineer (Water) at the Water Hygiene Centre, a ‘centre of excellence’ dedicated to independent water safety consultancy, considers future developments and changes for water safety, and focuses on some of the rapid detection and analysis technologies for detecting potentially harmful waterborne bacteria.

Al Rufaie, a medical electrical consultant with over 40 years’ experience in the electrical industry, takes a look at the history and international development of medical IT (isolated power) power systems.

The NHS Health Infrastructure Plan (HIP) is intended to deliver a rolling five-year programme of investment in health infrastructure, including capital to build new hospitals and resolve critical safety issues across the NHS estate.

The NHS is increasingly under pressure to reduce expenditure and tackle its environmental impact. Tony Orton, head of Healthcare Business Development at Centrica Business Solutions, examines the role of modern distributed energy technology in meeting these challenges.

A sanitaryware and infection control specialist who gained much of his 30 years’ plumbing and water hygiene expertise and experience at Armitage Shanks before establishing his own consultancy, has set up two new UK businesses to market two ‘ground-breaking new plumbing products’ aimed squarely at healthcare facilities.

Speaking in the opening keynote address on the second morning of last October’s Healthcare Estates 2019, Professor Michail Kagioglou, who is a Dean and Professor at the University of Huddersfield, addressed the subject, ‘Total delivery of healthcare infrastructure for patients, users, and communities’, and the work that he and his team have been undertaking around this goal – including with external partners – over recent months. HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie, reports.

In January’s HEJ, editor, Jonathan Baillie, reported on the first half of a ‘Diversity and Equality’ roundtable in early November in London, at which topics ranged from encouraging more people from diverse genders and ethnic minorities into the sector, to some of the more challenging experiences for women engineers, such as around sexism, being passed over for promotion/training, and misconceptions over their professional abilities.

Rebecca Wareham, Sustainability coordinator assistant at Canadian healthcare provider, Island Health, and the company’s Energy manager, Joe Ciarniello, report on its recent work to address climate impact vulnerabilities associated with extreme weather, with a particular focus on the Nanaimo General Hospital on Vancouver Island.

In an article that first appeared in Canadian Healthcare Facilities magazine, Mike Cavanaugh and Brett Farbstein of architectural, engineering, design, and construction firm, CannonDesign, consider some of the fundamentals in ensuring that hospitals and other healthcare facilities are designed to be as resilient as possible in the face of extreme climate events.

Gavin Statham, Southern Regional director at BES, a specialist in the design and construction of cleanrooms, aseptic facilities, and other sophisticated environments, discusses the demanding requirements for hospital aseptic facilities, and how the healthcare sector can benefit from the experience of the pharmaceutical industry.

While certain elements, such as safety flooring, are a ‘must’ for healthcare facilities, in most cases a more tailored interior design is required – especially when it comes to care units for those living with dementia.

The key role that the organisation plays as the regulatory body for the UK engineering sector, and some of the existing formal requirements for registration as an Engineering Technician, Incorporated, or Chartered Engineer, or Information and Communications Technology Technician, as well as the future of engineering education, and the need for the sector to ‘innovate to develop future engineers’, were the subject of a Healthcare Estates 2019 conference presentation by the Engineering Council’s CEO, Alasdair Coates, in October. HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie, reports.

It is now widely accepted that creating a positive environment in healthcare settings has a significant impact on patients’ wellbeing, potentially leading to fewer infections, therapeutic benefits, reduced pain, and shorter hospital stays.1

A Northern Irish NHS Trust’s efforts to significantly reduce its carbon footprint and fossil fuel usage, and increase its use of renewables, via what its Estates engineering team dub ‘an innovative multidisciplinary approach across the mediums of software, hardware, plant, design, contract analysis, and training’, were rewarded when it won the Lord Carter Innovation Award 2019 at an IHEEM event held in Westminster in mid-November. HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie, reports.

On 1 May last year the new Royal Papworth Hospital, a striking heart-shaped building located next to the city’s famous Addenbrooke’s Hospital on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, began accepting its first patients.

With the impact of human activity on the global climate very much in the news, September’s IHEEM 2019 Regional Conference & Exhibition in Cardiff saw speakers discuss climate change’s wide-ranging impact on the operation and use of healthcare facilities – from patient comfort, internal temperatures, and staff productivity, to plant operation and building condition, as well as the healthcare estate’s contribution to carbon footprint and global warming.

‘Sustainability in the NHS’ was the title of a first day presentation by Professor Fiona Daly, Sustainability & EFM Workforce lead at NHS England and NHS Improvement (NHSE/NHSI), in the ‘Strategy & Leadership’ steam at October’s Healthcare Estates 2019 conference in Manchester. HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie, reports.

HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie, reports on the first half of an IHEEM ‘Diversity and Equality’ roundtable held in early November at the London offices of Eta Projects, at which participants discussed topics including encouraging more people from diverse genders and black and ethnic minorities into the sector, ‘alternative routes’ into healthcare engineering, and some of the workplace experiences – good and bad – of female engineers in a still largely male-dominated sector. February’s HEJ will report on the discussion’s second half.