RECENT NEWS

Ease of installation made the case for using Knauf Drywall’s Safeboard walllining in the X-ray rooms of the UK’s first new dental school for 40 years – at the Peninsula Dental School at the Tamar Science Park, Plymouth.

The Heating and Ventilating Contractors’ Association (HVCA) is rebranding, and, from the beginning of this month, will be known as the Building & Engineering Services Association (B&ES).

The Royal Albert Edward Infirmary in Wigan, better known as Wigan Infirmary, anticipates it will avoid spending £48,847 per annum in fuel and maintenance costs following the installation of 157 of Thermal Energy International’s GEM venturi orifice steam traps throughout the site.

The new Sheikh Khalifa Specialist Hospital in Ras Al Khaimah in the UAE has commissioned Berchtold to deliver 108 ceiling mounts, 130 operating room and examination lights, and 13 mobile Operon D 760 and D 850 operating tables with accessories – the company’s largest single order in the past decade.

A Government-owned limited company, NHS Property Services, is to take ownership of, and manage, that part of the existing primary care trust estate that will not transfer to NHS community care providers under the healthcare reform plans set out in the Health and Social Care Bill, Andrew Lansley has announced.

Bespoke Vistamatic vision panels have been specified for the Princess Nora Bint Abdulrahman University in Riyadh, which will comprise 32 campuses, and will ultimately accommodate over 40,000 students and 12,000 employees, boasting a 700-bed teaching hospital, plus research centres for nanotechnology, information technology, and bioscience.

The Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust, four years ago among the UK’s poorest-performing on infection control, has been awarded the status of the world’s first International Centre of Excellence in infection prevention from Johnson & Johnson company, Advanced Sterilization Products (ASP), after reducing its Clostridium difficile infection rate alone by over 80% in just three years via more rigorous cleaning, and use of an ASP-supplied hydrogen peroxide-based mist dispersion system.

‘Grafted’ into a mature landscape on the fringe of Northumberland’s countryside in Prudhoe, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust’s new Ferndene 40-bedroom residential and day centre integrates children’s mental health and learning disability services for youngsters aged 4-18 for what is reportedly the first time in the UK in a design that ‘engages at different levels with its environment’. The £27 million facility provides assessment and treatment for young people with ‘complex mental health, behavioural, and emotional needs’.

IHEEM is to hold two seminars on ‘Sustainability’ in April and May this year. Speakers already confirmed for the ‘Plan Today for A Sustainable Tomorrow’ events, taking place at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole Hotel on 19 April, and on 16 May at a London venue to be confirmed, include Phil Nedin, an Institute Past President, Chartered Engineer, and director of Arup’s global healthcare business.

With the NHS in England’s annual carbon footprint now 21 million tonnes, and the Department of Health having set an ambitious target of a 10 per cent reduction by 2015, and an 80 per cent reduction by 2050, Hochiki Europe stresses that a new generation of LED emergency lighting products can contribute significantly to reducing hospitals’ and other healthcare facilities’ carbon footprint, while also fulfilling a useful extra role.

Trend Controls says that, ‘following very positive feedback’ from its 2011 New Product Introduction Workshops, it is to hold a series of further ‘interactive’ workshops in February and March this year designed to enhance users’ and potential customers’ understanding of how a correctly applied Trend building energy management system will reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions ‘using a range of new products specifically designed for that purpose’.

Pall Medical is to hold a series of free-to-attend educational seminars, dubbed ‘training masterclasses’, across the UK focusing on current guidelines for prevention of waterborne diseases in healthcare premises, and their implications for healthcare estates teams, clinical personnel involved with augmented care such as treating burns victims and ICU patients, microbiologists, and infection control staff.

London’s University College Hospital says it is the UK’s first to introduce a ‘virtual nurse’ to greet staff and patients on arrival and remind them about good infection control practice.

Eastwood Park’s new 2012 course calendar presents a range of training opportunities for all involved in specialist healthcare equipment, engineering, and facilities management.

The British operator of what is said to be the world’s largest fleet of mobile surgical facilities, Vanguard Healthcare, has clocked up its 150,000th patient procedure in one of its 40-plus vehicletowed mobile surgical facilities.

The quest by Middlesbrough’s James Cook University Hospital to standardise all its macerators has seen it select Vernacare’s Vortex. The hospital has over 1,000 beds, and had been using three different macerator types, which had become old and at risk of breaking down.

Modular construction specialist for the healthcare sector, MTX, has been included in the new Modular Building Systems framework awarded by the Government Procurement Service.

An application for Affiliate membership submitted by Bournemouth, UK-based Courtney-Thorne has been accepted by the General Secretary in consultation with the IFHE President and Vice- President.

The President of the International Federation of Hospital Engineering hereby convenes the IFHE General Assembly to be held on the afternoon of Monday 16 April 2012 on board the Norwegian coastal steamer MS Midnatsol during the course of the IFHE 22nd Congress, 14-17 April, organised by the Forum for Sykehusenes Tekniske Ledelse (FSTL) Norway.

In a valedictory written for the January 2012 IFHE newsletter, the Federation’s President for 2010-2012, Yasushi Nagasawa, recollects that, although one of the ‘sub-themes’ of the IFHE 21st Congress in Tokyo in late 2010 had been ‘Safety and Security’, at the time he never anticipated that Japan would be struck by the devastating earthquake that hit its north-east coast in March 2011.