RECENT NEWS

Medirest, part of Compass Group UK & Ireland, has successfully renewed its contract with the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust and Barnet, Enfield & Haringey Mental Health Trust.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) has agreed to provide £109 m in funding for the construction of a new District and General Hospital in Dumfries.

A recently completed sustainable mixed-used scheme in White City, London, ‘The Bloom’, designed by Penoyre & Prasad for Fulcrum Infrastructure Management and Notting Hill Housing, incorporates a 3,400 m2 primary healthcare and social services facility, retail units, and 170 shared ownership apartments and low-cost market discount apartments.

The health centre has received a BREEAM ‘Excellent’ rating.

A £1.25 bn ‘package’ of additional investment to boost mental healthcare services, the introduction of an Apprenticeship Voucher ‘to put employers in control of the government funding for the training apprentices need’, and a four-year, £20 m investment to fund establishment of four pilot ‘Connected Health Cities’ (Leeds / Sheffield, Manchester, Newcastle, and Liverpool), were among measures unveiled in George Osborne’s 2015 Budget on 18 March.

The NVTG, the Dutch ‘Association for technical facility healthcare professionals’ has issued a call for entries to its international NVTG Building Award 2016.

Professional body for facilities management, BIFM, has opened delegate bookings for its 2015 ThinkFM conference, to be held on 13 May this year at Kings Place, London, and to again be hosted by Daisy McAndrew, former economics editor for ITV News.

The problem of counterfeit and inferior personal protective equipment (PPE) finding its way into UK workplaces is growing, workplace equipment supplier, Slingsby, maintains.

The growing importance of vocational training, and ‘the perennial debate that continues to surround sustainability, energy efficiency, emissions reduction, and the low-carbon economy’, are among the key focuses in the Building & Engineering Services Association’s (B&ES) recently published Business Manifesto – drawn together in advance of May’s General Election.

Versatile electrical appliance testing technology is helping one of England’s largest hospital NHS Trusts, the Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Trust, maintain ‘the highest standards of safety’ at the Cheltenham General and Gloucestershire Royal Hospitals.

PEL Services has been awarded the fire alarm installation contract for the Lister Hospital, a 620-bed general hospital in Stevenage. Over the past four years, £150 m has been invested in new wards, theatres, and maternity facilities, along with a much expanded emergency department, at the hospital.

BeaconMedæs has launched new semi-automatic and manual manifolds designed to supply piped medical gas where a continuous supply is essential, and where the gas is to be supplied from high pressure gas cylinders.

The operator of the world’s largest mobile operating theatre fleet is targeting expansion in Europe in the wake of the ECB’s plan to inject €1.1 trillion into the Eurozone.

Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust has chosen biomass technology from Rural Energy to heat its new £40 m mental healthcare facility, The Harbour, in Blackpool.

Facilities management provider, Servest Group, has appointed Mike Proctor as managing director for the Building Services division. He will be responsible for developing Servest’s Building Services offering and differentiating it from other mechanical and electrical businesses ‘by introducing innovative practices and new technologies’.

Architecture and design practice, tp bennett has secured planning permission for a new standalone hospice that will provide a purpose-built 4,000 m2 specialist palliative care facility on a generous suburban site on the old Ekco Radio site in Southend.

The British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM) is building on its current presence in Belfast with the opening of a new office in Dublin.

Crown Paints has produced a comprehensive guide ‘to help specifiers get the full picture on the role colour can play in healthcare environments’.

Eastwood Park (see also page 41) has announced its first free electrical workshop for 2015 – to be held on 30 April 2015, commencing at 9.45 am for a 10.00 am start, with lunch and networking opportunities, and closing at 2.30pm.

The organisers of IHEEM’s annual Healthcare Estates event, Step Exhibitions, are working ‘with the direction of representatives from over 20 NHS Trusts’ to launch a new healthcare sector event aimed particularly at those involved in facilities, technology, finance and procurement.

A major assessment of the coalition government’s record on NHS reform by The King’s Fund concludes that the upheaval caused by the Health and Social Care Act has been ‘damaging and distracting’.