RECENT NEWS

Surgical robots are gaining widespread acceptance globally as they enhance surgeons’ abilities in terms of surgical imaging, navigation, planning, and instrument manipulation, says a Frost & Sullivan report, Innovations in Medical Robotics.

A three-day cross-disciplinary course aimed at clinicians, designers, project and facility managers, planners, architects, and engineers, ‘with an interest in the latest concepts and ideas that will contribute to the design of an emergency department that meets contemporary and future needs’, will take place at Downing College Cambridge from 7-9 July.

The Living With Environmental Change (LWEC) partnership has published a concise but detailed document setting out some of the options for more sustainably and effectively preventing acute hospitals from summer overheating.

Stryker Corporation has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Berchtold Holding – whose portfolio includes surgical tables, equipment booms, and surgical lighting systems ‘geared towards maximising efficiency and safety in operating rooms and ICUs’ – for a purchase price of US $172 million (£103.2 m).

The British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM) has launched what it is dubbing ‘The Facilities Management Professional Standards’ – a ‘global competence model for the profession’ created in consultation with FM stakeholders, experts, and professional standards writers.

Independent building energy management system specialist, ABEC, has launched the ABEC Academy – an engineering training scheme for the building controls sector.

Static Systems Group has launched a software package to help hospital management teams demonstrate high standards of patient care – by collating the response times from patient call to staff attendance at the bedside, and presenting the data in easily understood reports.

Dalkia has marked its 75th anniversary of providing energy to the healthcare sector with a 15-year, £5.4 million contract win at Good Hope Hospital in Sutton Coldfield that will see the Hospital’s energy plant upgraded.

Biomass boiler specialist, Wood Energy, is celebrating continued UK business growth with the launch of a national Registered Installer Network, which it says will provide highly skilled and trained biomass boiler engineers across the UK.

Dieselec Thistle has been awarded a £1 million project by Balfour Beatty Engineering Services for Northumbria Healthcare NHS Trust to install a standby power system at the new £70 m Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital in Cramlington.

MITIE has won a three-year, £33 m contract with Four Seasons Health Care, the UK’s largest independent health and social care provider.

E.ON and Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust have announced a 15-year agreement to upgrade and manage the Queen’s Medical Centre’s (QMC) on-site power plant.

C-TEC’s new, ‘updated’ version of its ‘powerful and very cost-effective’ PDA200E induction loop amplifier is fully compliant with BS 7594 and BS EN 60118-4, and ‘ideal for any perimeter loop application of up to 200 m2’.

North London Estate Partnerships (NLEP) has received Highly Commended recognition at the CIBSE Building Performance Awards 2014 for its collaborative work on the redevelopment of Finchley Memorial Hospital (HEJ – June 2013).

The Magnetic Resonance and Image Analysis Research Centre (MARIARC) at the University of Liverpool has taken possession of a bespoke and full turnkey energy-efficient chiller package to support its MRI scanners, from ICS Cool Energy.

OJEU notices for two new complementary Buildings and Facilities Management professional services frameworks have been published, with an ambition of attracting suppliers.

Report highlights ‘lack of new engineering blood’ An EngineeringUK report projecting the UK’s capacity for industrial growth reveals that the shortfall of under-19s taking advanced engineering apprenticeships.

SAACKE, which provides clean firing solutions for process and special purpose applications firing waste oil and gases, bio-oils, low CV gases, dust fuels, and standard fuels, has joined IHEEM as a Company Affiliate.

A nuclear engineer who, after undertaking his ‘O’ level education in the UK, moved to Canada, and, having completed the first year of an Aerospace Engineering Degree there, switched courses to successfully gain a Bachelor of Nuclear Engineering degree, has joined IHEEM as Member.

IHEEM has fitted to the roof of its Portsmouth headquarters 20 solar panels – as part of a continuing programme of improvements to the building, a key element being to equip the premises with energyefficient equipment that will reduce carbon emissions.