FEATURE ARTICLES

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’.

In an article that first appeared in The Australian Hospital Engineer, Michael Ward, facilities engineer, Building, Engineering & Maintenance Services (BEMS), Townsville Hospital and Health Service, Queensland Health, Mark Fasiolo, hospital engineer within the same organisation and service (both work at Townsville Hospital), and Jeffrey Turner, now client services manager, BEMS, at Metro South Hospital and Health Service, Queensland Health (but formerly hospital engineer at Townsville Hospital), describe a complex redevelopment project at Townsville Hospital in Queensland.

In an article based on a presentation at last month’s Institute of Hospital Engineering Australia (IHEA) Management Conference in Brisbane, Kim Bruton, chief engineer, MIHEA, NZIHE, CHCFM, of Northeast Health Wangaratta (NHW) in Victoria, describes some of the interesting experiences, challenges, and wider lessons learned, during his first five years as facility manager at the major referral health service for the north-east Victoria region.

A ‘Michael Parkinson-style’ one-to-one interview which saw Fabrice Muamba, the Zaire-born ex-professional footballer who survived a cardiac arrest while playing for Bolton Wanderers in March 2012 that saw his heart stop beating for 78 minutes, tell his story.

Giving the keynote presentation on the first day of this year’s Healthcare Estates conference, Julian Hartley, chief executive of Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, discussed some of his key experiences and learnings since he began his NHS career as a management trainee in north-east England.

HEJ asks Colin Freeman, managing director of commercial door and window specialist, ATB Systems, about trends in the design of windows and doors for healthcare, and some of the challenges of meeting legislative and sector- specific requirements.

In the hospital environment, technology is becoming an ever more central element in the drive to improve care standards, in line with guidance from Government and independent institutions, such as at the National Institute for Care Excellence (NICE).

Personal alarm and critical communications system manufacturer Atus Systems’ origins are founded in the Personal Security Product division of the Bosch group group. Atus’ ‘rich history’ goes back to the 1960s, when Philips started its on-site paging business in Breda in Netherlands, a business that in 2002 was acquired by Bosch, and then, in September 2010, by Atus, when it became an independent company, allowing it to focus directly on critical communication solutions.

Phillip Herring, managing director at VINCI Park UK – a parking operator which develops and manages integrated parking solutions across a wide range of sectors – examines some of the key issues facing those working within healthcare estates and facilities teams responsible for parking policy and operations in their hospital or other healthcare facility, and discusses how the company has deployed its expertise to ‘ease some of the pressures’.

Keith Hamer, an asset management system specialist, currently group vice-president, Asset Management and Engineering, at Sodexo, and Kevin Main, marketing director at asset management solutions learning consultancy, Asset Wisdom, look at an important new international asset management standard, launched earlier this year, that they believe many in the healthcare estates and facilities management community managers may, as yet, have little, if any, knowledge of.

Craig Chapman, Bacticell product specialist, and an air filter training specialist, at GVS Filter Technology UK, discusses the importance of correct specification of filtration components for heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning equipment, to optimise system hygiene, improve plant performance, reduce energy consumption, and maximise efficiencies. 81Health