FEATURE ARTICLES

At an event held on 20 March at Lord’s Cricket Ground in London, representatives from some of the UK’s largest healthcare estates – among a larger cross section of delegates – were asked the question: ‘Legionella compliance – are you doing it wrong?’

Independent consultant to the healthcare sector, Dr Melvyn Langford, outlines his concerns that, in many cases, the emergency diesel generators so critical to the resilience and uninterrupted operation of clinical and other functions within healthcare facilities may not be performing to reliability levels set out in guidance and codes of practice, and sets out recommendations to reduce the risk of breakdown, necessitating, he argues, a multi-disciplinary approach.

Catherine Zeliotis, a senior architect and healthcare leader at Stantec, and the lead clinical designer for the new Cancer Centre at Guy’s Hospital in London, describes both the company’s key design philosophies, and how it overcame a number of challenging practical issues – including not displacing the remains of a buried Roman boat found on the site – to create the blueprint for what the practice, and indeed all the project participants, believe will be a ground-breaking new cancer treatment complex.

Dr Nebil Achour BSc MSc PhD, a researcher at Loughborough University who has 13 years’ experience and expertise in disaster prevention – with particular focus on the resilience of healthcare facilities – examines some of the ways that business continuity and resilience can be ‘built into’ hospitals and other healthcare facilities, to enable them to remain functional in the event of major ‘disaster’ or ‘hazard’ events such as earthquake, fire, or flood. He draws on his own work, experience, and reflections, and considers some of the key international thinking and approaches.

Jon Fletcher, operations director at Interfurn UK, which designs and manufactures ultraclean hospital ventilation (HVAC) systems and healthcare and laboratory furniture, discusses the company’s approach to designing ultraclean ventilation (UCV) canopies – which it says offer greater protection against infection and improved cleanliness for patients and staff than more ‘traditionally designed’ systems, alongside enhanced performance, greater energy efficiency, easier installation, and a more ‘future-proof design’.

It is often said that food is the best form of medicine, but will the new Hospital Food Standards help? Good quality, high standard catering in hospitals and healthcare establishments is crucial. Here ISS Healthcare’s catering services director, the immediate past chair of the Hospital Caterers Association (HCA), Andy Jones, outlines just how important it is for Trusts throughout the British Isles to consistently promote, develop, and implement, catering standards, and to ensure they that are adhered to.

The British Parking Association (BPA) has recently worked with the Department of Health to update parking guidelines for NHS Trusts.

Having worked in the parking sector for nearly a decade, Leighton Ponting now spearheads the business development of Open Parking, a specialist parking management operation which claims to deploy ‘cutting edge and proven technologies to maximise customer experience and improve compliance around major public facilities’.

In this article, the third in a series on the new ISO 55000 asset management standards (see also HEJ – October 2014 and February 2015), Kevin Main, marketing director for asset management solutions learning consultancy, Asset Wisdom, and June Lancaster, a learning expert with years of experience of learning in the healthcare sector, describe “how the asset management challenge calls on facilities management companies and other suppliers to the healthcare sector to become ‘learning organisations’”, and how this has been achieved by Sodexo, ‘and can be done by others’.

Looking ahead to the healthcare challenges facing the next government, Conor Ellis, head of healthcare at built asset consultancy, EC Harris, argues, in a personal viewpoint, that ‘more commercial’ business case returns on investment, better commercial and FM delivery, and more strategic thought on project engagement ahead of procurement, should be among the priorities if the NHS is to continue to provide the standard of care for which it is world-renowned while operating efficiently and within tight budgets.

Having, on leaving school, completed a mining engineering apprenticeship, and later managed one of England’s biggest coalmining complexes, Essentia CEO, Steve McGuire, spent 10 years in senior estates and facilities roles with the forerunner to today’s Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, before being recruited in 2003 by London’s Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust to head its estates and facilities function.

In an article that first appeared in the Spring 2015 issue of Canadian Healthcare Facilities, Mark Berest, a principal at B+H Architects, and Carol Ringer, a clinical design consultant with WR Consulting Group, explain why Ontario’s new St Catharines Hospital, which opened two years ago, is considered one of Canada’s most advanced hospital designs when it comes to infection prevention and control.

One year on from the publication of the Health and Safety Executive’s HSG 274 Part 2 guidelines on controlling Legionella bacteria in hot and cold water systems, Carole Armstrong, marketing manager at Delabie UK, considers three point-of-use anti-scalding technologies that help to control the risk of scalding in environments with low, intermediate and high levels of risk to patients, staff, and visitors. She also considers different solutions suggested by the guidelines for reducing bacterial contamination while minimising the risk of scalding.

The 2015 Design in Mental Health (DIMH) Conference, Exhibition & Dinner takes place this month at the National Motorcycle Museum, Solihull.

In an article first published in the Spring 2015 issue of Canadian Healthcare Facilities, the magazine’s editor, Clare Tattersall, describes a project which is seeing undertaken one of the largest healthcare redevelopments in Ontario, as the new ‘campus-style’ 457 inpatient-bedded Oakville Hospital takes shape prior to a scheduled opening later this year.

Very close proximity to existing hospital buildings, managing the craning of 31 sizeable off-site built modules and eight large air-handling unit sections onto site without disrupting hospital traffic or operations, and the need to complete the new building to an extremely tight schedule, were among the challenges successfully met by MTX Contracts recently during its completion of a new ‘dementia-friendly’ 30-bed decant ward at Walsall Manor Hospital in the West Midlands.

Chris Norris from Siniat, a frequent supplier of plasterboard for NHS projects, looks at the estates challenges facing the service, and how good building material choices can directly impact on patient outcomes.

According to specialist in optimised resource management, Veolia, combined heat and power (CHP) ‘has been proven for its effectiveness in reducing carbon emissions, thanks to the efficient way that the technology simultaneously derives power and heat from the combustion process’.

In 2013 Peter Sellars, head of Profession for Estates & Facilities Policy at the Department of Health, successfully bid for £50 million from the Treasury to help finance a range of ‘spend-to-save’ energy efficiency initiatives across the NHS in England. In all 117 energy efficiency projects were initiated across 48 English NHS organisations – funded through a dedicated NHS Energy Efficiency Fund.

Electrical engineering and estates personnel at Sodexo – which manages a wide range of soft and hard facilities management services for five hospitals under a PFI contract at the Manchester Royal Infirmary – have successfully planned, managed, and co-ordinated, a complex electrical engineering project which saw high voltage (HV) switchgear in the site’s main intake sub-station dismantled by the supplier to repair a potential earthing mechanism fault which would have prevented individual switchgear panels being shut down, to, for example, cater for renovation of electrical cabling or components cross the site’s high voltage network.