FEATURE ARTICLES

Darryl Pitcher, who took over as the IFHE’s President from Douwe Kiestra at the event, reports on a highly successful 25th IFHE Congress held in Brisbane last October, where, in addition to the human attendees, the venue – Brisbane City Hall – also welcomed a variety of Australia’s wildlife.

An associate partner and strategist in the health planning team at construction, property, and management consultancy, Rider Levett Bucknall, considers a changing NHS estate, with expectations that, in future, more outpatient care will be delivered closer to patients’ homes.

A look at the critical role played by microbiological water testing in improving patient safety, and some key maintenance priorities for estates team to keep healthcare water systems running safely and hygienically.

New workplace management and occupancy technology is helping organisations in other sectors make large savings on their real estate while also improving the employee and visitor experience, says Raj Krishnamurthy, CEO of agile working solutions provider, Workplace Fabric, who here explores the opportunities for such technologies in healthcare.

The founder and CEO of ventilated cladding system specialist, Shackerley, discusses the use of the company’s SureClad ceramic granite façade system at the new £100 million Proton Beam Therapy Centre at The Christie in Manchester.

A specialist in passive fire protection solutions, ‘innovative plasterboard products and systems’, and fibre cement boards, has launched a new dense plasterboard with integrated glass fibre mesh which it says combines a robust construction – making it well suited to areas subject to impact, attack, and abuse – with excellent acoustic performance.

Where hospital budgets are under pressure, roof maintenance and repairs are often addressed reactively. A look at why establishing the condition of flat roofs and taking a long-term approach to maintenance, repair, and replacement, will help manage budgets more effectively

Specialist in high security and blast / ballistic-resistant doors and windows, Stafford Bridge, is set to considerably expand its portfolio in the next few months, and will be increasingly targeting the acute and mental health sectors.

A look at the need for secondary preventative measures – alongside thermal control – to guard against significant growth and build-up of Legionella in hospital water systems.

Surgeons at University Hospital Ayr undertaking laparoscopic surgery can now operate with much enhanced visibility, and stream live images of surgery for training both within the hospital and to locations worldwide, after the installation of Scotland’s first ‘4K’ integrated operating theatre.

Tim Sibbald, Water Regulations team leader at Northumbrian Water, looks at what happens during a Water Regulations inspection of hospitals and other healthcare premises.

Last month, speaking at the IHEEM 2019 AE Conference, Authorising Engineer, Andrew Poplett, explained how the assessment, appointment, and acceptance of key roles and responsible officers ‘can cause significant confusion and issues within the ever-changing organisational structures of both NHS and private healthcare providers’

A specialist in infection prevention, proactive drainage support, and research and development for new drainage solutions, discuss some of the major infection-related and other challenges caused by blocked and damaged drains. It points out that research indicates that there is a correlation between poor drainage and the number of superbug infections, with dangerous viruses, such as MRSA, C. diffcile, norovirus, and SARS, ‘growing’ in drains.

Fire doors’ importance in protecting buildings and their users continues to be ‘vastly underestimated’, particularly in older healthcare buildings, says Intastop, which recently held a fire door safety seminar at its Doncaster headquarters, with expert speakers from both the NHS and the private sector.

The L8guard software system from Digital Missives has highly impressed the Estates Maintenance team at Bedford Hospital, where it has significantly increased flushing compliance. It highlights around 1,600 sinks, showers, and washbasins hospital-wide, assessed as ‘low-use’, identifies whether they have been regularly flushed, and, where necessary, prompts staff to perform flushing activity.

Jonathan Waggott, of consultancy, Jonathan Waggott & Associates, a specialist in sanitary infection control issues, considers how the healthcare sector can adopt a broad range of more ‘sustainable’ practices – from using sustainable materials when building new hospitals, and implementing energy efficiency measures to cut both carbon footprint and utility costs, to a scheme where disposable shower heads and hoses are recycled into new ones.

David Navarrete, director of Research Initiatives a Sky Factory, a leading designer of research-verified virtual skylights, discusses the cognitive mechanisms by which the company’s Luminous SkyCeilings – reportedly the only products of their kind to earn a Jury Award from an international panel of architects – reduce acute stress and patient anxiety.

With the way in which surplus NHS land is being redeveloped changing, Howard Williams and Paul Burley, Partners in the Healthcare team at chartered surveyors and property consultants, Montagu Evans, argue that the value of the NHS estate must be ‘protected and used to benefit the service itself – not as a political pawn to achieve other public sector objectives to the detriment of healthcare’.

A new endoscopy unit which, it is anticipated, will be one of the UK’s biggest and most advanced, is now taking shape at York Hospital. On its completion in May, it will enable the York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust to considerably increase the number of endoscopy procedures it delivers to accommodate significantly rising demand, while simultaneously improving the efficiency of the process and patient flow.

Graham Stanton IEng, FIHEEM, AE(D), who spent 43 years in the Welsh Health Service, 35 of which involved specialist sterilisation and decontamination work, describes some of his more challenging experiences as an AE(D) working in hospitals, and helping staff tackle a variety of decontamination-related associated issues, during a varied and interesting career. This article is based on a presentation he gave at a Central Sterilising Club seminar in Birmingham late last year.