RECENT NEWS

A collaboration between Philips Healthcare and the LATCH Welsh Children’s Cancer Charity has resulted in the opening of ‘Latchmosphere’, a ‘one-of-a-kind’ multi-sensory imaging department at the Children’s Hospital for Wales in Cardiff – which provides ‘a calming, empowering experience’ for young people needing scans within an oncology imaging department, and incorporates the latest Philips AmbientExperience (AE) technology.

Safety continues to be the Care Quality Commission’s biggest concern across all the services it inspects, the Commission’s latest annual analysis of the quality of health and adult social care in England, The state of healthcare and adult social care in England 2014/15, reveals.

ISS UK has achieved recommendation for certification to the new Quality Management Standard – ISO 9001:2015

Eastwood Park Training has announced a formal partnership with Staffordshire University, marking the launch of two new Foundation Degrees and a BSc (Hons) Degree in 2016.

Ceiling systems from Armstrong – selected for their sustainability credentials – were specified for a new Pre-Operative Assessment Department and Surgical Admissions Suite at Bristol Royal Infirmary.

Two more NHS Trusts have chosen Avensys UK to look after their communitybased medical devices, with services including asset auditing, equipment servicing and repair, and the Avensys online asset management database.

An ‘out of this world’ flooring design using Polyflor’s vinyl flooring has brought an extra element of fun to a playroom at the Nightingale children’s ward at Chesterfield Royal Hospital.

An ‘eclectic mix’ of 45 professionals were recently among the first visitors to Static Systems’ new Design & Innovation Centre (D&IC), which includes a full scale ‘mock-up’ of the ProCure21+ repeatable rooms Four-Bed Multi-Bed Bay design (HEJ – October 2015).

Trend Control Systems has extended its control system components with a new range of pressure independent control valves (PICVs) designed to fully optimise the control of thermal comfort and provide significant energy savings.

Serco has secured a five-year, £85 m extension to its contract at Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital (NNUH) to provide a range of facility management services.

Community Health Partnerships (CHP) has appointed two new investment directors to manage CHP investments through the LIFT Public Private Partnership (PPP) programme and wider investment opportunities.

Last month’s HEJ included an editorial show preview on this month’s Healthcare Estates 2015 conference, exhibition, and dinner, at Manchester Central.

Guldmann UK has recently completed the installation of its GH1F and GH3 patient hoists at the new 270-bed Alder Hey in the Park children’s hospital (HEJ – September 2015), expected to be one of Europe’s busiest and most advanced children’s healthcare facilities.

Bender UK has provided the IPS and UPS critical power network and supplied and installed touchscreen control panels, and Steris LED theatre lighting and pendants, for a new, second operating theatre in the maternity unit at Colchester General Hospital.

A first ever ‘system-wide’ report from the health sector in England has shown that while progress is being made to prepare organisations and communities for climate change’s effects and its impacts on health, ‘further support should be given to embed climate change and sustainability into local thinking and decision making, enhanced by a sound platform of information from nationally-collated information and intelligence’.

A standard integral blind system with the ability to tilt the slats from open to close, and to lift or raise the internal blinds for maximum exposure, has been selected for the new £10 m Sudbury Community Health Centre, one of Suffolk’s biggest such facilities.

Potential participants and collaborators are being sought for a research project that will examine the timing and scheduling of hospital life, to identify potential opportunities for reducing overall energy and mobility demand in hospitals.

Contour, the designer and manufacturer of low surface temperature (LST) radiators and guards, has introduced new ‘round top’ panel radiators, which ‘provide an ideal choice for those seeking to reduce energy waste and also save on space’.

Recognising that hybrid and integrated theatres necessitate a ‘less cluttered, more open-plan theatre’ design, with fewer obstructions in the path of imaging or laparoscopic equipment, MAT (Medical Air Technology) has introduced its new self-contained DYNAMIC screenless ultraclean ventilation (UCV) canopy.

The Register of Clinical Technologists (RCT), which is jointly managed by the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine (IPEM), the Association of Renal Technologists (ART) and IHEEM, has recently been accredited under the Accredited Registers programme.