FEATURE ARTICLES

The Institute’s busiest and biggest Healthcare Estates conference to date, addressing skills shortages through investment in training, education, CPD, and apprenticeships, joint working with other professional engineering bodies in pursuit of common aims, and further work to strengthen IHEEM’s national and international profile, were among the topics covered by Ian Hinitt in a wide-ranging President’s Address in November

Paul Millard, Technical manager at WRAS, highlights three key plumbing material issues which he says should be considered and addressed within Water Safety Plans to maintain the water supply in hospitals and other healthcare facilities in safe and hygienic condition.

With Brexit ‘the inescapable elephant in the room’, Carole Armstrong, Marketing manager at water control and sanitaryware specialist, Delabie UK, looks at how UK best practice in the field has gained traction in the French healthcare sector.

Nick Hill, FIHEEM, of independent consultancy, Water Quality London, a former chair of IHEEM’s Water Technical Platform who sits on the Institute’s Authorising Engineer (Water) Registration Board, describes the microorganisms which inhabit the drains serving washbasins in hospitals and other healthcare facilities, and considers some of the alternative approaches to managing the risks they present.

Medical gas system solutions specialist, SHJ, believes many current hospital medical gas systems may be running inefficiently – potentially wasting energy, adding to electricity consumption, and increasing the likelihood of premature breakdown.

Brian Muirie, Sales director at DTGen, discusses the company’s evolution and expertise in standby power generation, explains some of the ramifications of recent environmental legislation for such plant, and explains why – with the diesel engine market ‘making every effort to introduce cleaner engines’ – the business was ‘eager to take things a step further’, and offer the UK market’s first gas standby generators.

The importance of a stable, able, and adaptable workforce in meeting some of the changing challenges facing an ever-more technology-enabled NHS was among the key themes to emerge at this year’s Healthcare Estates conference.

Speaking in a keynote on the first day of October’s Healthcare Estates 2019 conference in Manchester, shortly after the director and head of Profession for NHS Estates & Facilities at NHSE/NHSI, Simon Corben, in his address, had emphasised the importance of a flexible EFM workforce willing to embrace new skills and adapt to new challenges.

The Healthcare Estates IHEEM Awards Dinner 2019 on 8 October saw some 650 guests – the highest number in the dinner’s history – celebrate the presentation of nine awards and a number of runner-up certificates, recognising achievement and excellence in categories ranging from New Build Project of the Year to Sustainable Achievement.

With patient safety a priority, NHS staff need uninterrupted access to clinical data 24 hours per day, 365 days a year. Phil McEneaney, from STULZ UK, warns that a failure to understand the difference between comfort cooling and precision cooling is resulting in poorly specified equipment – ‘leading to higher costs, IT failures, and increased risk’.

Two innovative new hospital projects designed by healthcare specialist architects, BDP, feature what the practice’s Architect director believes are ‘among the most ambitious designs to date for seamless emergency care’.

Integral Engineering Design has worked alongside the Royal United Hospitals (RUH) NHS Foundation Trust in Bath on three new building projects over the past five years. Claire Thomas, a director at Integral, explains how Building Information Modelling (BIM) and 3D modelling (‘a kind of Virtual Reality’) have played a central role in the design of the buildings above ground, and, increasingly, also with the enabling works that are required when developing an existing hospital site.

With concern in recent years over inadequate reprocessing of endoscopes, a look at some of the key steps and measures that can be taken to tackle the issue, and thus reduce the risk of infection from contaminated devices.

Tinaz Ranina, Product manager, Infection Prevention & Personal Care at Diversey, UK & Ireland, takes a look at some of the increasingly powerful and effective disinfectants and advanced ‘adjunct technologies’ now available to help hospital cleaning teams in the fight against the ever-more resistant pathogens in healthcare facilities that can cause hospital-acquired infections.

In September 2018, the new £200 m Chase Farm Hospital near Enfield opened to become what its operator, the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust, believes is the NHS’s most advanced digital hospital.

Architect, Richard Mazuch, founder and champion of IBI TH!NK, the IBI Group’s ‘in-house’ research and development group, and an advocate of evidence-based design in ‘creating innovations that positively impact the psychology and physiology of patient groups’, examines the many positive therapeutic benefits – both physical and mental – of ensuring that modern healthcare buildings, and the patients being treated within them, get sufficient sunlight.

Hospitals regularly suffer with high numbers of cars arriving at site, with their drivers wanting to use onsite parking, resulting in a higher demand for car parking spaces than is actually available. Here Simon Bourke, Healthcare Sector lead for global professional services firm, RPS Group, looks at the key considerations, and at some of the key steps in developing an effective Travel Plan, with a focus on the positive outcomes resulting from doing this at two large acute NHS Trusts.

Paul Musgrove, UK Development manager at shower room and washroom specialist, Conti+ UK, discusses some of the many and varied considerations and priorities for estates and facilities teams managing healthcare washroom systems, and outlines some of the recent advances in the field from the company.

Becky Hill, an applied biology and microbiology research scientist who ‘transitioned into the corporate world’ – developing her knowledge skills and expertise in water treatment and purification – before founding performance improvement and strategic advisor company, Solutions 42, outlines her ‘holistic approach and measurable solutions to learning and development interventions in healthcare’.

The Quadram Institute in Norwich is, the facility’s creators say, ‘an exceptional interdisciplinary facility dedicated to food science, gut biology, and health’. Richard Walder, Sector director of Science and Technology (UK) at BuroHappold Engineering, and Nora Claudio Familiar, Project architect at NBBJ, outline the challenges of housing three complex organisations under one roof, and explain how collaboration enabled the project to succeed.