FEATURE ARTICLES

Pointers to improving waste management are provided by Greg Roberts, senior environmental consultant, Hyder Consulting.

Recent amendments to waste legislation and technical guidance have resulted in a number of changes that dictate how the NHS must manage its waste.

Aladin Antic, head of the IT Division, Vamed Management und Service GmbH Deutschland, draws attention to the importance of optimising information technology support for tertiary processes in hospitals.

The way forward for hospital engineering in Europe will clearly require a balance between meeting new expectations and adhering to somewhat restrictive budgets. This was a point reinforced at ECHE 2007, the 2nd European Conference on Healthcare Engineeing, which was held recently in Vienna, Austria. Nicholas Marshall reports.

Those responsible for health estate and facility management need to reinforce their professional stance, gain a louder voice, and comprehensively plan for change. These points were underlined at IHEEM’s 2007 Healthcare Estates Conference, held recently in Harrogate. Nicholas Marshall reports.

Mark Clark, strategic partner manager (Europe, Middle East and Africa – Healthcare), Hitachi Data Systems, looks at meeting the healthcare data challenge with virtualised storage.

Consulting engineer Malcolm Thomas provides an overview of considerations that relate to the design and layout of isolation rooms.

At the San Gerardo Hospital in Monza, Italy, as in every hospital with its own clinical electronic machinery, there is a need to keep expensive equipment up and running and well maintained.

Those involved in planning new hospitals and clinics, and in updating existing facilities, need to keep a close watch on how medical technology continues to move forward. MEDICA 2007 will be a major showcase of the latest such technology, as Wilhelm Niedergöker, managing director at Messe Düsseldorf GmbH, the organisation which stages the event, describes.

As administrative, regulatory and economic demands within the healthcare sector continue to grow, the onus is on facilities managers to adopt effective waste management strategies. This can seem like a daunting and complex task but the safe and cost-effective handling of the waste on a healthcare site is an environmental and economic imperative, writes Clare Noble, managing director, PHS Wastemanagement.

The Leeds & Bradford Hospitals Pathology Service is benefiting from an advanced data back up system. Health Estate Journal reports.

In an exacting project, an industrial building has been transformed into a state-of-the-art surgical instrument decontamination super centre. Health Estate Journal reports.

Ensuring security for more than 2,500 staff at 70 separate premises was a tall task for the East Midlands Ambulance Service Trust (EMAS), Health Estate Journal reports.

North Bristol NHS Trust is one of the largest healthcare provider Trusts in the UK. In partnership with its primary care colleagues, the Trust is currently embarking on an exciting programme of strategic development to reconfigure acute and community healthcare services in North Bristol and South Gloucestershire.

An incisive, personal view of the provision of medical gases is put forward by Melanie van Limborgh, assistant director of nursing, projects and development, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, London, and immediate past chairman of the Association for Perioperative Practice.

A 15-year PFI partnership between a London NHS Trust and energy management company Dalkia is ensuring a reduction in greenhouse gases and offering extra revenue streams. Health Estate Journal reports.

BUPA Hospitals has recently become independent of the BUPA Group, having been sold to private equity group Cinven. Stressing the importance of appropriate further investment in its care environments, the organisation, now named Spire Healthcare, is set to push standards of private healthcare provision to new levels. Nicholas Marshall reports.

While the programme of building new hospitals seems to be on track, targets for existing estate replacement look unlikely to be reached, and backlog maintenance has increased. These are comments in Our Future Health Secured? – a comprehensive King’s Fund report by Sir Derek Wanless on the unprecedented levels of funding invested by the Government in the NHS over the past five years. Health Estate Journal reports.

There are often unwelcome visitors in hospitals – some potentially harmful. Extermination is the only solution for some pests but there are alternative measures for others, Health Estate Journal discovers.

David Harper, a world-renowned public health consultant on the issues surrounding Legionella, outlined the latest innovations and developments in this area at a conference held by The Healthcare Facilities Consortium at Liverpool’s Hope University in September.

Geoff Dillow, the main author of HTM 08-06: 2007 Pathology Laboratory Gas Systems, examines the new guidance in detail. This article will form the basis of a presentation at the Medical Gas Association AGM on 16 October in Harrogate during the IHEEM Healthcare Estates event. Geoff Dillow is an MGPS Services consultant.