RECENT NEWS

Speaking at the Association of Healthcare Cleaning Professionals’ recent 2013 Annual Conference in Bolton.

Recent changes to EN54-20 legislation, and the introduction of next generation aspiration smoke detection ‘to provide earliest warning, accuracy, and flexibility’, are ‘just some of the aspects covered’ in a new CPD accredited presentation from Honeywell Life Safety.

A ‘tougher’ high-performance vinyl flooring for busy public areas has been launched by Gerflor.

Reaqua Systems, a business originally formed by Scottish Southern Energy to explore energy reduction and greywater reuse, and subsequently spun out under investment funding from Scottish Equity Partners and backed by Scottish Enterprise.

Britplas’s Safesee door, featuring an opaque panel which is quickly switchable to ‘clear’ to allow patient observation, and which is designed, as a whole, as a ‘programmable scale’ that enables staff to set a trigger point for notification of ligature attempts, has won a major international award.

Multi-disciplinary construction consultancy, Edmond Shipway, recently completed its work role as cost manager on the £6 million Phase 1 development of the Institute of Immunity, Infection and Transplantation, a new research facility for University College London and the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust, located at Hampstead’s Royal Free Hospital.

Provider of electronic fire and security solutions, ADT Fire & Security, has been selected as security provider for NHS Grampian’s new Aberdeen Emergency Care Centre.

P4 (FASTEL), the specialist manufacturer and supplier of self-testing emergency lighting systems, has further strengthened its sales team with the appointment of five ‘experienced and talented professionals’.

Marley Eternit says its Cedral Click is the UK’s first ‘innovative, low maintenance, fibre cement tongue and groove weatherboard’ and offers ‘a contemporary take on the traditional style of Cedral Weatherboard’.

With the NHS spending over £20 bn annually on goods and services – accounting for some 30% of each hospital’s operating costs – but, in the view of Health Minister, Dr Dan Poulter MP, the NHS still ‘failing to harness its enormous purchasing power’.

A ‘transition’ of ophthalmology services from Plymouth’s Royal Eye Infirmary (REI), Mutley, to Derriford Hospital, is now complete, following the reconfiguration and refurbishment of the Avon and Carey wards at Derriford Hospital.

Pegler Yorkshire, the plumbing and heating manufacturer, has invested over £5 million at its two Yorkshire sites to double production capacity to accommodate expected demand for its range of metal push-fit fittings.

Spirax Sarco has enhanced its EasiHeat engineered systems for delivering hot water and heating on-demand ‘to deliver up to 20% energy savings compared with conventional steam-to-water heating systems’.

The Queensway Medical Centre, on the site of a former ‘burnt out’ public house in Wellingborough, in a ‘challenging’ residential area surrounded by roads and a low-rise shopping centre, ‘marries external security with internal tranquillity’, say its designers, maber architects.

With the UK public sector now having some £385 billion worth of property under management(Deloitte research reveals), national mapping agency, Ordnance Survey, says more and more public sector organisations across England and Wales are improving service delivery and cost efficiencies by accurately mapping their property assets.

IHEEM is supporting a one-day seminar on Improving air quality in healthcare facilities, being held by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) at its London headquarters at One Birdcage Walk on 7 November.

Micad says its Annual User event, being held on 11 September, will be the biggest staged by the company so far, with over 150 delegates expected.

Consulting engineer, Crofton, has completed a ‘challenging’ M&E contract at Ashford’s William Harvey Hospital in Kent, as part of the delivery, by Cardy Construction, of a new ‘high tech’ orthopaedic operating theatre and modern obstetric operating theatre there.

The Care Quality Commission (CWC) has told Barts Health NHS Trust it must make ‘urgent improvements to protect patients’ at Whipps Cross University Hospital after issuing three formal warnings following unannounced inspections at the facility in Leytonstone in May and June. The inspection team included ‘experts by experience’ (service users), a practising midwife, and a practising surgical unit manager.

Dennis Markey has been appointed, and has now taken up the role, of Chief Operating Officer for NHS Property Services.