REGULATION & COMPLIANCE ARTICLES

Mark Roberts, UK Public Sector director at Jaggaer, takes a look at the potential impact on the healthcare sector of the Procurement Act 2023, which came into force in February, and outlines technology’s role in, for example, complying with the new requirement to continuously monitor supplier performance and ethical behaviour throughout a contract’s lifecycle.

In this ‘Q&A’-style article, James Weber, Marketing manager at SFG20, the UK industry standard for building maintenance, talks to Mathew Houghton, IT lead for Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, to understand how – as the latter puts it – he got back an entire working day per week of time savings using SFG20 content and software.

David George, an Authorising Engineer (AE), Mechanical, at Eta Projects with over 30 years’ experience of high-risk Safe Systems of Work (electrical, mechanical, petroleum, confined spaces), and 19 years’ experience as an AE, and a Co-ordinating Authorising Engineer and trainer in the development of Safe Systems of Work, debates some of the issues around the requirement for a formal mechanical SSoW for the healthcare estate.

The assessment, appointment, and acceptance of the Authorised Person role can be seen as a ‘tick-box exercise’, with many APs finding the role considered an ‘added extra’ to existing duties and roles. An IHEEM-registered AE discusses the extent and nature of the role using ventilation as the primary exemplar of the duties involved.