FEATURE ARTICLES

Georgina James of Arup Australia reports on the design of a new cancer centre in Sydney, Australia, which brings together cutting edge treatment and translational research facilities, a highly sustainable design, and the flexibility to adapt to cater for new “research directions and technologies” in the future.

Harry Waugh, the Scottish branch member of IHEEM’s Council, and a former Health Facilities Scotland energy manager, who now runs his own energy/carbon consultancy, “Call Harry”, argues that growing reliance on technology will continue to strengthen the need for effective energy management in the healthcare sphere.

IHEEM’s AE (D) Panel plays an important role in managing and administering the UK’s only official register of such specialist personnel, and indeed it is the Panel that selects qualified candidates for registration, interviews those considered “the right material”, and confers registered AE (D) status on those that Panel members feel have the right combination of professional experience and expertise, academic qualifications, and knowledge, to fulfil the role.

Clive Nattrass, programme director for the Carbon and Energy Fund (CEF), describes how the Fund can potentially help NHS Trusts seeking to upgrade and improve their infrastructure to reduce their carbon footprint, and thus make useful energy savings, to secure the necessary finance.

London’s Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust has installed a complete barrier laundry system from Electrolux Professional at its St Thomas’ Hospital location for specialist washing of an estimated 7,000 microfibre cloths and 5,000 microfibre mops each day from both the St Thomas’ and Guy’s Hospital sites.

Many medicines can be destroyed by storage and transportation at the wrong temperature. Joe Fudge, service manager at ABB Measurement Products, examines how proper monitoring supports best practice.

Creating a 21st Century mental healthcare facility which would soon be world-renowned both for its quality of care, and for the high standard of its buildings, was the overriding goal of the project team behind the new £75 million, 312-bed Roseberry Park mental healthcare facility in Middlesbrough.

Speed of construction, with significantly less disruption to on-site activity, and continuity of a wide range of orthopaedic surgery, coupled with excellent prior experience of the modular build specialist’s expertise at the site, led the project team for a suite of four new orthopaedic operating theatres at the Leicester General Hospital to again select Stockport-based MTX Contracts for the job.

Graeme Dunn, engineer, Design and Engineering at Atkins, who serves as an Authorising Engineer (MGPS) for both NHS clients and healthcare providers throughout the UK, Ian Sandford, a medical gas consultant (associate) at Hulley Specialist Gas Services, a specialist division of consulting engineers Hulley and Kirkwood, and Alex Black, an experienced technical consultant and AE (MGPS), of Alex Black and Associates, examine how the AE (MGPS) role developed, and highlight what they describe as its “pivotal importance” today.

With many of Europe’s landfill sites now close to capacity, and the EU Landfill Directive requiring that, by 2020, the amount of waste sent to landfill should be just 35% of the volume similarly disposed of in 1995, pressure is mounting to find environmentally acceptable waste disposal alternatives.

Authorising Engineers (Decontamination), a group of highly skilled individuals acknowledged as lacking an effective representative professional body over the past decade by Graham Stanton, the chairman of a new IHEEM Decontamination Technical Platform (DTP) established recently to promote their professional interests, have much both to contribute to, and to gain from, the new Platform, he, and the body’s secretary, Brian Kirk, explained to HEJ editor Jonathan Baillie at a recent meeting in London.

Addressing a 220-strong audience at London’s Barts Hospital at the launch of a new NHS Sustainable Development Unit (NHS SDU) publication, Route Map for Sustainable Health, senior NHS and NHS SDU speakers highlighted the magnitude of the challenge faced by the service over the next 5-40 years in meeting its carbon reduction targets, and set out how the new “Route Map” could provide important pointers to help all in the healthcare arena operate more sustainably in the broadest sense.

Once viewed almost exclusively as temporary facilities built down to a cost, especially by the architectural community, modular off-site built healthcare buildings have enjoyed increasing success in recent years, as perceptions about their quality, and recognition of their advantages over “traditional” on-site constructed buildings,

The St Helens & Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust says it has reached a significant milestone in a major project via which it aims to cease completely using paper-based patient records and other patientrelated information such as discharge summaries and X-ray results by converting all such documentation to online electronic form.

The first of a series of 15 dementia care homes planned to open across southern and southwestern England over the next five years by Archstone Lifestyle Care, a new sister company to builder of luxury homes for older people Archstone Lifestyle Homes, was officially opened late last year at Verwood in Dorset in an attractive, leafy location on the edge of the New Forest.

Darren Ling, a director of ventilation and kitchen extract duct cleaning specialist System Hygienics, explains why pre-commission cleaning is essential to combating the risk of healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs).

With the Carbon Reduction Commitment now fully in force, and the NHS tasked with achieving tough carbon emission reduction targets in line with both UK and EU mandates, healthcare estates teams across the country are seeking cost-effective ways to reduce energy consumption.

At a time when, with less capital funding available for purchasing high value hospital equipment, NHS board-level and financial personnel may be tempted to sign off purchase of equipment that:

Over 400 guests, including senior representatives from estates and facilities teams, healthcare planning companies, healthcare providers, architects, contractors, and product suppliers, attended the recent 12th annual Building Better Healthcare Awards in London.

How hospitals and other healthcare facilities can cost-effectively and efficiently deal with the sizeable quantities of clinical and other waste generated by their day-today activities, while meeting their statutory obligations, and keeping “on the right side” of regulatory and enforcement bodies such as the Environment Agency,