FEATURE ARTICLES

With the NHS generating around 18 million tonnes of carbon and CO2 annually, estates personnel face a considerable challenge in meeting tough Government and EU energy reduction targets while maintaining patient safety/comfort amid predictions of, for instance, hotter summers.

Work has just been completed on a multi-million pound development at a Derbyshire hospital to provide a state-of-the-art facility for elderly mental health patients.

Some of the measures that EFM personnel can take to further reduce their estates’ carbon footprint at a time when pressure to cut energy consumption must be balanced both against the requirement to create the best possible patient environment, and new medical technology that may require substantial energy to operate, were the focus of a recent IHEEM carbon reduction seminar in London.

Being as “visible” as possible, both within the Institute itself, and to influential outside organisations and individuals such as politicians and senior civil servants, strengthening IHEEM’s role as a trusted provider of expert advice on healthcare estate management and engineering issues, and further raising the Institute’s profile and its overall “appeal” to potential new members, will be high on the list of priorities for IHEEM’s new President, Paul Kingsmore, he told HEJ’s editor, Jonathan Baillie, during a recent face-to-face discussion in London.

Working in a tight three-sided courtyard location within two metres of existing walls, while minimising noise, dust, and other disturbance which could have affected the recuperation of neurological patients housed in adjoining wards, and simultaneously co-ordinating its work with that of another contractor undertaking a separate, major building project extremely close by, were among the challenges successfully met by MTX Contracts during its recent completion of a new, modular three-storey extension to The Walton Centre in Liverpool.

In a paper that won the “Best Paper” award at the Institute of Hospital Engineering Australia’s (IHEA) 2009 conference in Queensland, Ken Liddell, MIHEA, of the Facility Coordination Unit at NSW (New South Wales) Health, draws on his own experience to consider some of the challenges,

Phil Giles of Becker Pumps Australia examines the use of variable frequency drives for medical suction plant, and explains the many potential benefits – both practical and economic.

Among the many challenges the NHS currently faces is an urgent need to cut its burgeoning energy costs and, in specialist building management system manufacturer Trend Control Systems’ words, its “massive carbon footprint”.

Jonathan Jones, European product manager at Tyco Thermal Controls, explains the economic and other benefits of using electrically trace-heated single pipe distribution, in place of the more “traditional” flow and return system, for hot water supply.

According to Professor Sanaz Litkouhi, Ph.D, an assistant professor of architecture at the Payam-Noor University of Tehran, the general lack of emphasis on providing suitable activity facilities in children’s hospitals affects both recovering child patients’ state of mind and the overall healing process.

A-Gas (UK), a leading UK independent blender and distributor of speciality gases and chemicals, says that many users of the highly versatile HCFC 22 (hydrochlorofluorocarbon) refrigerant gas, including hospitals, are still either unaware, or not taking action to address, this year’s ban on the use of both virgin R22, and other virgin HCFC refrigerant gases, in equipment such as air conditioning plant.

A “bed pod” featuring “modesty screens”, enhanced acoustics, multi-level light, and extra storage; quickly erectable washroom “pods” for improving patient convenience and ward layout with minimal disruption;

Jeremy Dodge, business manager at Marshall Tufflex Energy Management, explains how a voltage optimisation system that, in a claimed industry first, uses “auto-transformers” to reduce incoming mains electricity voltage so that electrical equipment receives precisely the “outgoing feed” it needs to function optimally and no more,

The goal the team behind Birmingham Children’s Hospital’s new £2.7 million Children’s Kidney Unit set itself was to create a comfortable and relaxing, but equally lively, colourful, and stimulating environment that would help “transform, into something more bearable, and even fun” the time spent in hospital by young patients undergoing haemodialysis and other renal treatments.

This year’s HefmA National Conference, being held at Harrogate’s Majestic Hotel from 27-28 May, is being organised by the Association’s Northern and Yorkshire branch and will, the organisers promise, give estates and facilities managers “the arena to discuss and debate how the NHS can survive, strive, and thrive, not only in the economic downturn, but also amid the bleak financial outlook for public spending over the next few years”.

Electrical safety testing of medical equipment is essential to ensure that the apparatus is safe for operators and patients alike. Rigel Medical’s John Backes looks at the latest tests used to assess the integrity of insulation in electrical appliances.

In a paper originally presented at last October’s Healthcare Estates conference in Harrogate, Bob Heavisides, director of facilities at the Milton Keynes NHS Foundation Trust, explains how estates and facilities directors can provide a package of information based on a number of “measures that matter” to demonstrate to their boards that safe systems of work, operational efficiency and effectiveness, and operational parameters, are within, or better than, equivalent-sized Trusts.

In a follow-up to last month’s “Fighting the waterborne menace” article (HEJ – March 2010), Dr Tom Makin, directorate manager, medical microbiology, at the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals Trust, and Martin Pride, new business development, at Kemper UK & Ireland, examine how Legionella has become a significant potential issue in hospital water systems, and discuss a novel, venturi-based engineering system co-developed by Kemper and a German university,

Sophie Eastwood considers how planners and designers of new healthcare facilities can apply valuable experience from other sectors, such as residential and commercial, both to speed project completion, and to create a more harmonious, non-institutional feel which both aids patient recovery, and provides an enhanced working environment for medical and clinical personnel.

Location of health facilities closer to the communities they serve, bringing together health and other services and, where possible, through technologies such as telehealth, enabling patients to undergo more treatment in their own homes, are already major talking points among those responsible for future estates planning.