FEATURE ARTICLES

The practical and logistical challenges of designing and building the UK’s first high-energy proton beam therapy facility – which is set to open next summer – described in detail.

How 21st century technology, sound parking operative training, and a willingness among Trusts to innovate, are combining to improve the hospital parking experience.

Without substantial investment in the NHS estate, The Five Year Forward Viewcannot be delivered, and the estate will ‘remain unfit for purpose and continue to deteriorate’, an independent review of NHS property and estate in England suggests.

A new five-storey, 205,000 ft2 wing at the Chinook Regional Hospital in Alberta, Canada, was the country’s first project to register with the new LEED-HC environmental rating system.

A report on the significant innovation – in areas ranging from plant operation to patient and staff comfort – that went into a $A66 million redevelopment project at Echuca Regional Health in Victoria, Australia.

A recent project at Glenfield Hospital in Leicester has seen Interserve redevelop and improve the hospital’s vascular, cardiovascular, and angiography facilities, with the construction of a new hybrid theatre. The architects, P+HS, report.

Mark Anfield, Operations Director at Capita Parking Services (ParkingEye & Capita Parking Services), examines the company’s approach to ensuring that car parking on hospital sites is as stress-free as possible for patients, visitors, and staff – an area where technology such as ANPR cameras and automated payment can play a big part.

Mark Elton of Cowan Architects looks at the potential for Passivhaus technology in hospital estates, and urges the UK ‘to take note of what is already happening on the Continent to reduce unnecessary heating bills while improving patient and staff comfort for a healthier outcome’.

Associate directors at Arup – which offers a range of multidisciplinary design, planning, engineering, consultancy, and technical professional services, Malcolm Turpin, Catherine Wells, and Steven Berry, and director Jennifer DiMambro, consider some of the particular challenges of designing health and scientific research buildings

A look at how innovation that helped creating the striking new Alder Hey Children’s Hospital has continued since it opened, with a wealth of activities designed to improve the patient experience and foster medical advances being championed by a new ‘Innovation Hub’.

Caleb Finch, communications manager at Capstone Turbine Technology, considers the advantages of modern microturbine technology in CHP and CCHP installations, explaining that microturbine CHP is ‘especially suitable for healthcare facilities that are looking to increase their energy efficiency, lower their greenhouse emissions, and save money at the meter’.

The Carbon and Energy Fund, with the backing and support of IHEEM and HefmA, will later this year launch a new guide to effective and proven carbon and energysaving technologies suitable for use by NHS hospitals.

The fourth and final article in a series of four on the remit and responsibilities of IHEEM AEs working within four key disciplines looks at the role of the AE (Electrical).

John Thatcher, CEO at Eastwood Park, discusses the real value of training, and sets out the key elements that he believes have distinguished the Gloucestershire based non-clinical healthcare training centre for the past 48 years.

HEJ reports on the ongoing £485 m scheme to redevelop and replace key buildings at Brighton’s historic Royal Sussex County Hospital – one of the largest Treasury-funded NHS projects in recent years.

The Institute of Occupational Medicine highlights the integral role that hospital ventilation plays in maintaining high standards of patient care, and discusses some of the key steps to take to ensure that such systems are efficiently maintained.

A leading provider of mobile healthcare facilities explains how, with the NHS facing major under-capacity issues, such units can help to ease bed and clinical pressures.

How NHS estates teams are developing, and can benefit from, BIM, and how NEC3 contracts, and the new ProCure 22 Framework, enable the collaboration required for BIM to succeed.

Our third article on the role and remit of Authorising Engineers focuses on the key responsibilities of the AE (MGPS), some of the challenges for such personnel in healthcare settings, the need for competence and suitable experience, and the process for registration.

Medical engineering company, Avensys UK, is launching a new combined maintenance and training service ‘for all brands, models, and ages, of endoscope’.