RECENT NEWS

In a deal expected to be worth over £1m in total, Sidhil, has won the first stage of a contract to equip six new hospitals currently being built in Ghana. Products selected for the new facilities include beds, mattresses, overbed tables, couches, screens, curtains, and ancillary products.

Global FM – an association for facilities management member organisations worldwide – has announced 10 June 2015 as the date for the 7th annual World FM Day – ‘a day of worldwide celebration of facilities management, where FM professionals, teams, companies, and representative bodies, highlight the important role of FM’.

The focus for 2015 is ‘Building Resilience for the Future’.

Architects, ADP, have secured planning permission for a new £2.8m Cancer Support and Information Centre funded by Macmillan Cancer Support for Cornwall and Isles of Scilly, based at the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro.

Wireless nurse call technology specialist, Aid Call, says its latest system, the Touchsafe Pro, is ‘the product of over 35 years of industryleading experience’, increased R&D investment, and ‘invaluable customer feedback’.

Schneider Electric has launched an ‘app’ designed to help organisations and businesses ‘better understand and manage reactive energy’ to reduce energy consumption and CO2 emissions.

Eastwood Park is now taking bookings for the second year of its hospital engineering apprentice summer school, at its specialist training facility.

The future of Bradford-based Knightsbridge Furniture is ‘in safe hands’ following the announcement of a buy-out by managing director Alan Towns, and operations director, Peter Denham.

The Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust has been prosecuted by the HSE after it emerged that its workers may have been exposed to asbestos fibres.

Power management company, Eaton, has launched a new recessed and surface lighting product range featuring fluorescent or LED technology as the main light source.

Cable management specialist, Unitrunk, has supplied the New South Glasgow Hospital with cable ladder, tray, and trunking, as part of the extensive power infrastructure for the showpiece £842 million new hospital.

Bender UK has played a key role in ensuring the authenticity of the operating theatre scenes in the new Sky 1 drama, ‘Critical’, by providing operating theatre equipment used in the hi-tech sets built for the series.

The £160 million new Cancer Centre at London’s Guy’s Hospital, which is due to open at the south London site in 2016, was topped out last month.

From the beginning of this month, all health and care providers will have been required to make arrangements to prominently display their CQC (Care Quality Commission) 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 NHS Confederation has launched an independent commission on urgent care for older people ‘to drive improvements in urgent and emergency care for older people in and outside of hospitals’.

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.