RECENT NEWS

Medway NHS Foundation Trust has been allocated £4,761,000 from the government’s Estates Safety Fund for 2025/2026, to help it make some of the hospital buildings at the Medway Maritime Hospital in Gillingham safer.

NHS Property Services has announced the opening of seven new clinical rooms at Leighton Buzzard Health Centre following a ceremony attended by Rt Hon Wes Streeting MP, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.

New guidance has been published aimed at addressing a key knowledge gap around strategic asset management among UK workplace and facilities managers (WFMs).

Jill Nicholls (pictured) is stepping up from her current role as head of Service Development at The Building Engineering Services Association (BESA) to replace Helen Yeulet as the Association’s new director of Competence and Compliance.

Integrated Health Projects (IHP) has successfully completed the construction of new, ‘state-of-the-art’ healthcare facilities in Bournemouth.

Bender UK has appointed Tim Checketts (pictured) as Commercial director to lead sales and marketing operations, and drive growth in what it dubs ‘critical infrastructure markets’, including rail, mobility, and healthcare.

Kier has completed the refurbishment of a new facility for NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) in Southampton to support the drive for blood donation in the region.

Insulation manufacturer, Rockwool, has opened a new global centre of excellence for fire-stopping at Hams Hall, on the outskirts of Birmingham, where it says it will manufacture ‘a new best-in-class range of products’.

NHS Property Services (NHSPS) has released a new NHS Estate Optimisation Guide ‘to help NHS leaders and estate managers navigate one of the most pressing challenges in modern healthcare: making the most of the places and spaces that support patient care’.

The New Hospital Programme (NHP) has held an event to ‘kick-start ‘the next stage of procurement with shortlisted suppliers for the Hospital 2.0 Alliance.

NHS Shared Business Services (NHS SBS) has unveiled the third iteration of its framework agreement, Modular Buildings 3, to – as it puts it – ‘accelerate the construction of vital infrastructure across the UK’.

McLaughlin & Harvey has handed over the keys to Ayrshire Hospice’s new capital build project in Ayr.

The ‘urgent need to re-think how hospitals are designed, built, and maintained, to prevent the ongoing crisis of healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs)’, is highlighted in a new report, The Silent Pandemic: Healthcare Infections and the Need for Better Hospital Design, released by the Healthcare Infection Society (HIS) this week.

The Delabie Group has announced that it has entered into an agreement with funds advised by Equistone, the majority shareholder of KWC Professional, and with the other minority shareholders, to acquire 100% of the share capital of KWC Professional – formerly known as Franke Water Systems – and its subsidiaries.

With NHS buildings accounting for over 15% of the organisation’s total carbon footprint, and Estates managers under increasing pressure to align infrastructure decisions with stringent sustainability goals, roofing upgrades and sustainable design can help NHS estates meet their environmental obligations through practical, long-lasting solutions.

ICS Cool Energy, a specialist in complete temperature control solutions for manufacturing process and facilities applications, has re-located its Birmingham operations to a new, purpose-built facility in Erdington Industrial Park.

New research from Trinity College Dublin scientists strongly implies that heatwaves have a major influence on the spread of many diseases – and that many existing predictive models have overlooked this complexity.

As an organisation ‘committed to driving the industry forward and increasing awareness of the importance of building controls and automation’, the Building Controls Industry Association (BCIA) has launched what it describes as ‘an informative and illustrative animated guide’ to building controls.

BDP has appointed Max Martin (pictured) as the new head of its Birmingham studio, succeeding Dan Smyth, who is retiring this summer after a distinguished career in architecture and urban regeneration.

The construction of the new £15 m Endoscopy Unit at the Cumberland Infirmary (CIC) in Carlisle is now complete, with the facility set to open its first patients later this month.