FEATURE ARTICLES

Dr Melvyn Langford C.Eng, MIMechE, MCIBSE, who worked in the NHS for nearly 40 years, including as an estates and facilities manager at several NHS Trusts, has written several previous HEJ articles on ‘systematic failures’ in the way maintenance of NHS healthcare buildings has been managed, and on what he claims is a ‘fundamental flaw’ within the national guidance for backlog maintenance (see HEJ – November 2009, September 2010, and September 2011).

The key steps that can be taken to minimise the risk of harmful waterborne bacteria such as Legionella and Pseudomonas proliferating widely through water systems in healthcare premises were discussed in detail during a recent two-day event staged by Delabie, one of Europe’s leading water control and sanitary equipment suppliers, at the company’s Friville headquarters in Picardy, northern France.

A wide selection of Altro flooring and wallcovering products have been used in the award-winning Ferndene Children and Young People’s Centre in Prudhoe, Northumberland, to create a healing environment that, according to the company, ‘is visually stunning, as well as safe, hard-wearing, and hygienic’.

Replacing a healthcare facility first opened in 1908 as a 20-bed cottage hospital, the recently opened ‘new’ Finchley Memorial Hospital in north-west London was designed by architects, Murphy Philipps, ‘to be at the heart of a health campus’, surrounded by green space for use by both the hospital itself, and the local community.

With considerable evidence that the quality of the building ‘space’ within which mentally unwell patients are cared for impacts significantly both on speed and degree of recovery, the Design in Mental Health Network (DIMHN) has been working with the BRE and leading product suppliers over the past 5-6 years to develop a ‘Better Bedroom’ for such patients.

In late January this year the Department of Health (DH) released a revised and updated version of its NHS Premises Assurance Model (NHS PAM), a software-based tool originally launched in 2010 to enable estates and facilities managers to more easily gauge the condition of their built assets, provide premises assurance to their management Boards, and assure commissioners that healthcare is being delivered in fit-for-purpose buildings.

In a year when, with the inception of the new Clinical Commissioning Groups, the way that healthcare is procured and delivered will see radical changes, this month’s HefmA 2013 National Conference & Exhibition will have as its theme, ‘Many Players, One Goal: The Patient’.

While fire and rescue service personnel, the Government, those responsible for fire safety in the healthcare sector, the Health and Safety Executive, fire and rescue services, and indeed fire alarm and detection equipment manufacturers, must be pleased that the number of false fire alarms continues to fall, fire services still attended just under 585,000 fires or false alarm incidents across Great Britain in 2011/12.

In the latest of our series of articles designed to provide healthcare engineers with sound technical guidance on equipment or technology-related topics, John O’Leary, key account manager at Trend Controls (who in April’s HEJ discussed the benefits of natural ventilation in healthcare settings), explains the functions of a building energy management system (BEMS).

Alberta Health Services in Canada has welcomed an outstanding new facility to its healthcare stable with the emergence of new South Health Campus (SHC) in its Calgary Zone.

Few industry sectors have energy demands quite like healthcare. By definition, many buildings involved in treating the sick and injured need to be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Since 1 February this year, under the EU’s Biocidal Products Directive, it has been illegal to sell or use water treatment systems that use elemental copper, a practice employed historically by a significant number of UK healthcare facilities to combat Legionella.

Krista Wood, director of public relations for Colchester East Hants Health Authority in Canada’s Nova Scotia, describes enthusiastically a new 124-bed health centre that opened late last year, which not only has the potential to conserve 44 per cent more energy than a ‘traditional’ hospital, but is also better equipped, and almost a third bigger, than the facility it replaces.

Krista Wood, director of public relations for Colchester East Hants Health Authority in Canada’s Nova Scotia, describes enthusiastically a new 124-bed health centre that opened late last year, which not only has the potential to conserve 44 per cent more energy than a ‘traditional’ hospital, but is also better equipped, and almost a third bigger, than the facility it replaces.

Although (the Department for Communities and Local Government’s ‘Fire statistics’ reveal) the number of such incidents has fallen every year since 2006/07, UK fire and rescue services still attended over 312,400 ‘false fire alarms,’ i.e. instances where, on arriving at a site, they found no fire, in 2011/12.

While the UK has an enviable safety record in the management of medical gas systems, it is only via strict adherence to the four tenets – ‘continuity, adequacy, identity, and quality’ – embodied within Health Technical Memorandum 02-01: 2006 – ‘Medical Gas Pipeline Systems’ (MGPS) that we can be certain that patients will not be harmed by these systems.

A recent King’s Fund report, ‘Developing Supportive Design for People with Dementia’,1 describes the positive outcomes of 26 projects completed by 23 NHS Trusts across England under a Department of Health-funded programme, all of which set out to improve the care environment for people with dementia in hospital.

Making sure that a healthcare establishment has a good supply of clean fresh air is an important factor in keeping patients, staff, and visitors, free from the negative effects of CO2 and other contaminants.

‘Every defect is a treasure, if the company can uncover its cause and work to prevent it across the corporation’ – Kiichiro Toyoda, founder, Toyota. This quote, as true in healthcare as it in the manufacturing sphere, set the tone for discussion at a recent Dublin conference, which examined the thorny issue of whether compliance is really enough to ensure safety.

Next month (14-15 May) will see staged at Birmingham’s National Motorcycle Museum the first in a planned new series of Design in Mental Health Conference and Exhibition events.