RECENT NEWS

Architecture director, Akshay Khera, has been appointed as head of the Bristol studio of global design practice, BDP.

The practice says his appointment supports its continued growth in the region as ‘a widely respected, socially progressive practice with an embedded multidisciplinary approach across the healthcare, housing, education, and workplace sectors’.

Aggreko has increased its global investment in mobile battery energy storage solutions (BESS) to around US$200 m, in a move it says will allow more industries to access the latest in battery technology and reach Net Zero targets.

Calibrationhouse, a provider of UKAS-accredited calibration services, has announced a new suite of 'extensive calibration capabilities 'to enhance and streamline' its equipment calibration for the National Health Service (NHS) and wider healthcare industry.

A ‘unique’ new legal-tech recruitment platform has launched in the UK ‘to help put an end to overseas worker scams in the social and healthcare sectors, and directly connect UK employers and recruiters with pre-qualified overseas global talent’.

An ‘industry stalwart’ has been appointed President of The British Compressed Gases Association (BCGA).

Chris Street takes up the leadership role of the multi-billion compressed gases sector for a two-year term. The BCGA is the UK membership body for the industrial and medical gases industry. With ‘a commitment to stringent quality, safety, and environmental measures’, the Association’s members employ 19,000 people directly, accounting for an annual turnover of £2.7 billion.

The United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) has granted the UK’s first accreditation of a building inspector competency scheme to the Building Safety Competency Foundation (BSCF), for its Building Control Inspector (BCI) competence certification scheme.

Compliance Group, a leading UK integrated provider of safety and regulatory compliance services across electrical, fire, and water, has announced its latest merger – with CT Fire Protection, which joins its Fire Division to deliver high-quality fire sprinkler systems and associated services ‘on time and within budget’.

Tameside Hospital has worked with long-term partner, Canon Medical, to deliver what it describes as ‘a bespoke solution to the growing demand for diagnostic imaging in the region’.

Morgan Sindall Construction has been appointed to multiple new-build and refurbishment projects as part of a comprehensive package of upgrade work across several Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust sites.

A £20 million 32-bed short-stay ward for Northwick Park Hospital has been created above London’s busiest A&E Department by Modern Methods of Construction specialist, MTX, in what the company says was one of its most complex build programmes to date.

Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust says a comprehensive decarbonisation and energy efficiency scheme recently completed at Horton General Hospital in Banbury will save a projected 1,200 tonnes of carbon annually.

King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, in collaboration with Floyd Slaski Architects, is leading the development of a new respiratory support unit (RSU) at Princess Royal University Hospital in Farnborough Common near Orpington in Kent, particularly in Outpatients E, G&A Ward.

A new £9.4 m surgical centre that will perform around 4,000 orthopaedic procedures a year has officially opened at Central Middlesex Hospital in London’s Park Royal.

Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust has announced Scarborough Group International (SGI) – a UK privately-owned property regeneration specialist – as the preferred developer to ‘transform’ its historic Old Medical School at Leeds General Infirmary into ‘a globally recognised health-tech innovation hub’.

Modular construction specialist, Portakabin – appointed design and build contractor on the project – has handed over a new HTM and HBN-compliant two-storey Endoscopy Unit at the Hospital of St Cross in Rugby to University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire (UHCW) NHS Trust.

Cherwell, the cleanroom microbiology solutions expert, has developed a new peel-apart pack settle plate product to support a UK national study investigating the relationship between the microbiological quality of operating theatre air and infection rate.

Spire Healthcare – reportedly the UK’s first independent sector healthcare provider to commit to become carbon neutral by 2030 – has embarked on ‘a landmark project’ to install 12,155 solar panels at all its 38 hospitals across England, Wales, and Scotland this year.

NHS Property Services has re-launched its established, award-winning space management system, NHS Open Space, which it says ‘will help benefit customers, landlords, and patients across the entire health system’.

Demand for biodegradable flushable wipes is set to rise significantly following the Government’s decision to ban versions containing plastic, but – says DDC Dolphin – many ‘flushable’ wipes are not fully biodegradable, and can thus still block sluice machines, toilets, drains, and sewers.

Academics at Aston University are teaming up with Stoke-on-Trent-based medical product company, PFE Medical, which supplies endoscopy and healthcare disposables, to improve the cleaning of endoscopes.