RECENT NEWS

Among the expert speakers set to present at two IHEEM Infection Control & Pest Control seminars, entitled ‘The Uninvited Guests’ next month (1 March in Leeds, and 14 March in Birmingham, see also HEJ – January 2012, page 8), will be highly experienced environmental health officer, Roger Hart, who has latterly specialised in food safety, food hygiene, and pest control, advising numerous NHS Trusts, universities, food manufacturers, and offshore oil installations.

The £2.1 million, 650 m2 Simpson Birth Centre, recently opened at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, was built by Premier Interlink (Waco UK) in just 28 weeks, to time and on budget, in a ‘total design and build contract’, with the design fully DDA and HTM-compliant.

IHEEM has pledged its support for ‘the NHS Sustainability Day of Action’ on 28 March (HEJ – January 2012), at which University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and the NHS SDU will be encouraging NHS staff to think more about the need for a more sustainable healthcare delivery system and, thereafter, to involve them in ‘green’ initiatives going forward.

Ruby McGregor-Smith, chief executive of MITIE Group, was named on the New Year Honours List for 2012, and will receive a CBE for her services to business and diversity in business.

IHEEM Wales and NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership, joint organisers of the Welsh Healthcare Estates Conference and Exhibition 2012, being held from 26-27 April this year at Cardiff’s Hilton Hotel, say the triennial event will provide an opportunity to learn, at first hand, about the latest thinking in Wales on a wide range of estates topics.

Medical logistics business, Canute International Medical Services (CIMS), has acquired the trade and assets of Lundy Healthcare, in what the former describes as ‘a strategic deal’, for an undisclosed sum.

This year’s IHEEM Healthcare Estates conference and exhibition, taking place at Manchester Central from 9-10 October, will be held in what many see as a pivotal year for healthcare.

Venesta’s new website (www.venesta.co.uk) incorporates clear, concise technical information on its cubicles and washrooms, providing all brochures, NBS specifications, CAD blocks, and case studies.

The Wandsworth Group has launched a range of blue sockets to comply with NHS Medical Electrical Installation Guidance Notes (MEIGaN).

Omega Flex says its TracPipe stainless steel semi-rigid gas pipe saves up to 75% of the time normally required for a steel or copper pipe installation, and is consequently rapidly becoming ‘the recognised alternative’ to traditional rigid copper or steel pipework installed between meter and appliance.

The British Safety Council’s International Safety Awards 2012 scheme is open for applications. Open to all organisations, the Awards relate to individual sites and business units, allowing organisations to enter as many of both as they wish.

Specialist in clean air, containment, and infection control solutions, Howorth Air Technology, has formed of a new division – Howorth Bio Technology.

A new British Standard for cleanliness in newly installed ductwork ‘marks the end of a potentially damaging source of confusion’, specialist in ductwork contracting, System Hygienics, says. The company says BS EN 15780:2011 Ventilation for buildings – Ductwork – Cleanliness of ventilation systems, ‘clearly defines, for the first time, what is considered acceptably clean’.

A £450,000-plus healthcare project, reportedly England’s largest of its kind, at Bradford Royal Infirmary (BRI), has improved the hospital environment for acute elderly care patients suffering from dementia.

Step Communications, the publishers of Health Estate Journal are delighted to announce the re-launch of www.healthestatejournal.com

O2 Health has launched in the UK a new telehealth service, ‘Side by Side’, following a successful trial with NHS Western Isles in Scotland, which demonstrated improved clinician productivity, a 30% reduction in travel costs, and fewer appointment cancellations. A secure software solution, Side by Side enables clinicians to use their office computers to link up electronically and conduct “personal and effective remote patient-clinician consultations”. It incorporates video, audio, and chat functionality, plus a digital whiteboard for on-the-spot diagrams and annotations.

As part of its ongoing relationship with the Northern Skills Institute (NSI) at Hexham General Hospital, OR Networks, now part of Karl Storz Endoscopy UK, has equipped a suite of training rooms with equipment from its OR1 digital video teaching range.
The specially designed ORTV system includes cameras, feeds for endoscopic stacks, audio systems, microphones, and display systems, and serves a dual purpose: running two skills laboratories for hands-on laparoscopic training, and creating a simulated environment for ‘SimMan’, a 75kg ‘plastic patient’ .

Ivan Peredruk, a newly appointed overseas member of the Institute, writes: “I am currently employed as a senior architect with international company KEO, and, since 2010, have been based in Doha, Qatar, where I have been employed, on site, on the construction of the new Sidra Medical Research Centre.

The President, Paul Kingsmore, presided. There were 28 members present. The meeting opened with the President welcoming the members to the meeting, and calling on the CEO to read the Notice of the AGM.

John Constable, IHEEM President from 1981-83, has died, aged 92. Born in September 1919 in Lancashire, his family moved to Dover, where he attended Dover Grammar School.