FEATURE ARTICLES

In the October 2014 issue of HEJ, Keith Hamer, group vice-president, Asset Management & Engineering at Sodexo, and marketing director at Asset Wisdom, Kevin Main, argued that the new ISO 55000 standards present facilities managers with an opportunity to create ‘a joined-up, whole lifecycle approach’ to managing and delivering value from assets. In this article, Kevin Main and Chris Bradley, who runs various asset management projects, examine the process of creating an asset management system.

Phil Wade, director of Marketing at Static Systems Group, looks back at how bedhead services and trunking have developed over the past 40 years. Their development has, he says, been driven not only by increasingly stringent infection control criteria, the need for more attractive aesthetics, increased functionality, evolving communications technology, and the ability to adapt to meet changing needs, but equally by the growing part that clinicians and healthcare planners now play in the decision-making process for bedside layouts. He also looks forward to what we might expect to see in the future.

The tragedy of a patient dying through suicide is something that healthcare services strive to prevent. Although staff caring for those admitted to mental healthcare facilities will generally be highly vigilant over their patients’ wellbeing and state-of-mind – which should greatly reduce the risk of self-harm or suicide – predicting and preventing fatalities among such inpatients can be ‘fraught with difficulty’.

‘One of the things I’ve noticed in my role over the past two years is that while we have seen improvements in ‘pockets’ of the country, we still have much work to do to enhance and improve the NHS estate in the community’. This was the opening salvo from Antek Lejk, executive director and partnering lead at Community Health Partnerships, in a presentation titled ‘Improving the primary and community estate: Better Quality, Better Value, Better Health’, given as part of the Planning, Design & Construction ‘stream’ at October’s IHEEM Healthcare Estates 2014 conference.

As the 2014/15 financial calendar reaches the mid-year assessment, the search for efficiency savings and cost improvement plans (within the healthcare sector) continues. So says leading global built asset consultancy, EC Harris. Here, basing his article on the company’s recently published fifth report, Conor Harris (pictured), the company’s global head of Health, argues that, ‘while pressure on Trusts to balance the books is greater than ever before’, and the ‘quick wins have been won’, there are still ‘major savings to be made’.

In this article, Dave Mortimer MIHEEM, national sales manager, Vapac, at Eaton-Williams, examines the importance of getting humidification levels right in all areas of hospitals and other healthcare facilities to maximise patient, staff, and visitor comfort and safety, and minimise the risk of infection transmission and spread. His experience is that, too often, the importance of installing new humidification equipment is overlooked, or that existing such equipment is switched off where it needs to operate, or simply not replaced when it breaks down.

Andrew Poplett, a highly experienced engineer with over 28 years’ experience in healthcare building services engineering, considers some of the key tenets of good fire safety practice in healthcare premises, noting that fire safety is a core element and consideration within CQC inspections, and under the NHS Premises Assurance Model (NHS PAM). He warns those responsible for fire safety against letting key elements ‘fall between the cracks’.

NHS estates managers are regularly told that only by having a clear picture of the condition of their existing estate can they develop an effective strategy for managing and getting the best out of it. At October’s Healthcare Estates 2014 conference, Peter Haggarty, strategic facilities director at Health Facilities Scotland (HFS), explained how the organisation had recently developed its own effective ‘strategic approach’ to asset management across Scottish healthcare facilities, working closely with facilities capital planning and management company, VFA.

A strong gathering of IHEEM members, senior representatives from London livery companies, construction companies, architects, consulting engineers, and equipment suppliers, a number attending on behalf of Company Affiliates, gathered in Westminster on the evening of 18 November to hear the Institute’s new President, Chris Northey, give his inaugural Presidential Address.

The healthcare sector is one of the toughest environments for any specifier. For washroom provision alone, the combined requirements of ensuring infection control, hot water safety, and optimised hygiene, while also providing ease of use and maintenance, can prove challenging. Chris Tranter, product manager at Bristan, lifts the lid on the latest technologies, and how they make lighter work of washroom safety in the healthcare sector.

Advocates of 100 per cent single-bedded hospital accommodation have long cited such accommodation’s benefits, particularly in terms of a quieter, more therapeutic recovery environment, with greater privacy and dignity, reduced cross-infection risk, and, for example, the ability to decontaminate patient spaces, when required, with less disruption to clinical care.

Creating a good physical environment for patients is a challenge for the NHS, with its wide variety of building styles and ages. However, even small changes can have a positive effect for both patients and staff.

Healthcare facilities often lead the way when it comes to investing in efficient and reliable heating technologies that can reduce energy costs and prevent breakdowns.

Technology is playing an ever more important role in the hospital environment in the drive to improve care standards and the patient experience. Nurse call systems have always played an important role, which is becoming more vital in light of the trend in the acute sector towards single bedded rooms.

Air quality and comfortable temperatures in healthcare facilities are critical to patient health and wellbeing, while, if efficiently managed, getting temperature control right can improve a hospital’s energy efficiency and running costs. With so many options on the market, however, determining ‘the best fit’ for a particular healthcare facility can be a challenge.

Mohammad Mahtab Alam, associate principal engineer at AECOM Middle East in Abu Dhabi, reports on some of the key challenges in the mechanical plant design – particularly bearing in mind the local extreme climactic conditions – for the new King Khalid Medical City, a ‘centre of excellence for specialised healthcare centre’ in eastern Saudi Arabia, already designed, but yet to be constructed.

In a keynote presentation on the second morning of this year’s Healthcare Estates conference, Kim Ormsby (pictured), national corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability manager at NHS Property Services, discussed how, as part of its broader goals of ‘supporting the NHS in delivering clinical services’, and ‘helping to enhance the experience’ of patients visiting its buildings, the organisation would continue to pursue and embed in its activities sustainable policies wherever and whenever possible, encouraging both its staff and tenants to take a similar approach.

One of the four conference streams at last month’s Healthcare Estates 2014 event focused on some of the key engineering challenges and opportunities facing healthcare estates managers and healthcare engineers. Mike Arrowsmith, HEJ’s technical editor, provides an overview of the engineering sessions at this year’s IHEEM conference.

The HSE’s ACOP (Approved Code of Practice) L8 and supporting HSG274 Parts 1-3 Guidance set the minimum standards by which everyone should work to manage the risks from waterborne microbiological pathogens. The NHS also has further supporting guidance on the subject in the form of HTM core standards 00, 04-01 (three parts), and HTM 03-01 (two parts). However, argues Andrew Poplett IEng, MIHEEM, ACIBSE, an experienced engineer with over 28 years’ healthcare building services engineering experience – 18 in the NHS – ‘even with all of this available guidance, some elements of healthcare building services engineering are all too often overlooked’. Here, ‘to stimulate discussion and raise awareness of the issues’, he sets out some of the key points to consider.

Despite advances in technology, the importance of steam in NHS hospitals cannot be undervalued. Nevertheless, according to steam system specialist, Gary Sowerby CEng FEI, ‘it is becoming a feature which, like the tiger, is facing extinction’. However, as he puts it, ‘it is still of vital importance when we discuss the central role of steam in the hospital steriliser’. In this article, he aims to provide what he dubs ‘a vital understanding of the provision of efficient and good quality steam to the steriliser plant’.