RECENT NEWS

IHEEM’s Council has agreed that the Institute should continue to have a Chief Executive Officer to lead the organisation, and has now started the recruitment process.

The Institute has issued a ‘Call for proposals’ (see also ‘flyer’ within this issue) for this year’s IHEEM Healthcare Estates event, taking place at Manchester Central from 9-10 October 2012. This follows an email on the subject last month.

IHEEM will hold technical seminars on decontamination, infection and pest control, and water quality, over the next few months, including one in Birmingham next month (there is still time to book).

As IHEEM members will see from the report of the Institute’s 2011 AGM (see page 10), with effect from the beginning of this month, there will be a change to the timescales within which annual subscriptions should be paid.

A grand total of over 2,600 visitors, exhibitor guests, personnel, and delegates, attended November’s Healthcare Estates 2011 exhibition and conference, continuing the increases in attendance seen since the move to Manchester, and representing the highest attendance in the event’s history.

Wardray Premise has supplied bespoke shielded workstations for a new £1.4 million resuscitation unit at St George’s Hospital in Tooting, South West London.

Training centre, Eastwood Park, says it is already receiving considerable interest from managers of sterile services departments in one of its most recent new work-based learning initiatives – an Edexcelaccredited BTEC Certificate in the decontamination of reusable medical instruments.

Leaderflush Shapland doorsets have been specified for Doncaster Royal Infirmary’s new Women’s & Children’s Hospital.

Delegate places are still available for this year’s IFHE 22nd Annual Congress, to be held from 13-17 April on board the Norwegian coastal steamer, the Hurtigruten MS Midnatsol, as it journeys south down Norway’s scenic west coast.

NHS Protect, which incorporates some functions of the former NHS Security Management Service (NHS SMS), and provides policy and operational guidance on management of security within the NHS in England.

Girbau UK has added enhanced LOGI PRO control to its ‘popular’ 6 Series washer range to offer ‘even greater operational flexibility and lower consumption of energy and water’ for commercial on-premise laundry applications including hospitals and care homes.

In the introduction to the OR Networks-supplied article, Paddington hospital has ‘world first’ in AV in the November 2011 issue of HEJ. .

BAM Construction in the North West is to deliver new facilities for Aintree Hospital in Liverpool.

Manufacturer and supplier of float valves, Keraflo, has launched an electronic tank management system that it says provides, via one integrated ‘package’ for the first time, a simple way to monitor water level and temperature in cold water storage tanks.

Royal Philips Electronics has opened a dedicated research facility at its Eindhoven-based Research Laboratories which will develop ‘healing environment concepts’ that ‘harness intelligent technology’ to accelerate and improve treatment outcomes, while simultaneously reducing the stress and anxiety associated with hospitalisation.

Creating comfortable surroundings for patients and their visitors is an important part of designing healthcare spaces, emphasises LG Hausys, designer and manufacturer of solid surfacing material, HI-MACS.

Independent ice and snow clearance company, Nationwide Gritting Services (NGS), says its has been keeping roads, car parks, and pedestrian walkways clear of ice and snow at hospitals and healthcare complexes for many years, ‘offering a guaranteed service, no matter how severe the winter weather’.

According to Stuart Davies, of Hochiki Europe, treating a fire detection system as a ‘fit and forget’ part of a building’s infrastructure can have disastrous consequences. He explains the key part that regular maintenance of such systems plays in ensuring correct operation, and avoiding unwanted alarms.

One of the most recent work-based learning initiatives introduced by Eastwood Park is the development of a Certificate in the decontamination of reusable medical instruments.

Mike Beever, head of PFI, commercial, and contract planning, at the Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, was recently selected as the winner of a free IHEEM seminar place as one of those who provided valuable information to the Institute by completing a questionnaire, incorporated into the “carrier sheet” of September’s HEJ, seeking readers’ views on future seminar topics and locations.