RECENT NEWS

Energy consumption is expected to be cut by over 940,000 kWhrs annually at East London’s Newham University Hospital in a project which will see energy company E.ON work with the healthcare facility to improve its energy efficiency and reduce its carbon emissions.

Technal, in partnership with fabricators Quest Solutions, has supplied around 1,500 windows for the new £250 million Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield. The 88,000 m2 hospital is part of a £311 m PFI project for Mid Yorkshire NHS Trust, developed by Consort Healthcare.

Brandon Medical has supplied and installed critical care pendants, medical lighting and power systems, and operating theatre control panels, for the £311 million Pinderfields and Pontefract PFI hospitals project in West Yorkshire.

Life safety products from Hochiki Europe, which manufactures and supplies fire detection and emergency lighting systems, are being installed throughout 16 new government-funded polyclinics in Libya.

Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust (WWL) recently turned to healthcare digital signage specialist Saturn to design and deploy an electronic display screen network for use across four hospital sites within an ambitious two-week window.

As last month’s The Big Bang: UK Scientists and Engineers Fair, aimed at stimulating youngsters’ interest in engineering and engineering careers, got under way at London’s ExCeL (see also page 6), an organisers’ survey revealed that “two in three UK parents lack knowledge to encourage their children into skilled careers”.

Grahame Gardner recently received an urgent order for embroidered scrubwear for medical staff operating at Camp Bastion in Afghanistan.

HVCA (Heating and Ventilating Contractors’ Association) chief executive Robert Higgs is to retire from the Association after 38 years’ service later this year.

The EMCOR Group (UK) has become the UK’s first facilities management provider to achieve a BSI standard, BS 11000, that recognises “improved strategic collaboration across public and private organisations”, and “the importance of collaborative working on a global scale”.

The Gas Safety Trust and the Building Research Establishment (BRE) last month hosted a workshop for indoor air quality organisations and “relevant stakeholders” to “agree how the potential problem of low-level carbon monoxide exposure in homes, offices, and public arenas can be measured and minimised”.

The Design Council and the Department of Health have launched a national search for design teams to “rethink the design of hospital accident and emergency departments in a bid to develop new ways to reduce violence and aggression towards NHS staff”, estimated to cost at least £69 million annually in staff absence, lost productivity, and additional security.

Improvements to the IHEEM website during its recent re-design mean Company Affiliate Members now have at their disposal a more effective vehicle through which to promote themselves, with Institute members now able to search for such companies both by name, and by the products and services they offer.

At its recent meeting, IHEEM’s Council approved the introduction of a Student category of Membership. The decision followed work undertaken by the Institute’s membership department and Membership Committee, with the new membership “class” designed to fill a gap in the range of membership categories available to prospective members.

“Thanks for your email; it has been a torrid time here in Christchurch over the last few weeks since the event of 22 Feb: personally I was quite lucky, as I was in a meeting on the top floor of the Pyne Gould Corporation building one hour before it collapsed.”

Following its successful participation in the same event last November, IHEEM will again be involved in the National Engineering and Construction Recruitment Exhibition, to be held on 6 and 7 May at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre.

Three IHEEM head office staff – recruitment and membership manager Chris Parker, accounts manager Annabelle Morgan, and administration officer Danielle Silman, manned a joint stand with 3M at this year’s Big Bang: UK Young Scientists and Engineers Fair last month at London’s ExCeL exhibition centre.

During this month, members of the Institute will receive their copy of the “IHEEM Awards 2011” booklet. Now in their third year following relaunch, the IHEEM Annual Awards have become a popular feature at the dinner held at the annual IHEEM Conference.

IHEEM’s Conference Committee is currently assessing the papers that have recently been submitted for this year’s Healthcare Estates conference, which takes place at Manchester Central from 1-2 November, with the final programme expected to be announced next month.

A new care home for the elderly with integrated nursery, set in the heart of an “eco-district”, is France’s first healthcare facility to implement copper touch surfaces to help reduce infection risk.

The LIFT Council has welcomed the new Health and Social Care Bill, but warns the Government must make sure it “does not allow estate ownership issues to jeopardise its ambitions for healthcare reform”.