RECENT NEWS

One of the UK’s leading fabricators and installers of commercial glazing, Britplas, says it plans to work with manufacturers and suppliers of a wide range of hardware, fixtures, fittings, and furniture supplied into mental healthcare facilities to establish uniform tests that will enable NHS specifiers to buy such items confident that they are safe, fit-for-purpose, robust, and do not, for example, claim to have an anti-ligature design when they do not.

ISG, the construction, management, and fit-out services specialist, has secured a “fast-track” £1.3 million project with Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to create a new Andrology department and Sexual Assault Referral Centre (SARC) at the city’s St Mary’s Hospital.

Trumpf Medical Systems says it closed its most successful fiscal year ever on 30 June, with sales of 176 million Euros.

Specialist building and estates information provider, Topscan, has welcomed Marc Watson, formerly estates manager for NHS South of Tyne and Wear.

The Institute of Acoustics’ “Acoustics 2011” conference in Glasgow in September, themed “A new decade – a new reality: rethinking acoustic practice for the austerity decade”.

Construction company Mansell, which is currently undertaking works valued at around £17 million via a ProCure21+ contract at the world-famous children’s hospital as part of the facility’s current redevelopment, has presented Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity with a cheque for £33,000.

Against what it says is “a backdrop of product recalls and counterfeit goods”, the British Standards Institution (BSI) has launched a new Kitemark scheme for commercial catering appliances.

Ian Stone, who was responsible for introducing an award-winning remote monitoring system for medical gases while with previous employer, SHJ Pipelines (HEJ – September 2010), has joined piped medical gas specialists, BeaconMedæs, as regional sales engineer for London and southern England.

Wall and floor coverings supplier, Altro, has won a Green Apple Environment Award from The Green Organisation, an independent, non-profit environment group “dedicated to recognising and promoting environmental best practice”, for its “6 Steps to Sustainability Programme”

The British Institute of facilities Management (BIFM) says it is actively considering applying for chartered body status, with its Board having agreed to set up a working group to look at the costs, benefits, and feasibility.

Following its recent appointment as a GS1 Solutions Partner (GS1 is an independent, not-for-profit organisation that works to improve supply chain efficiency, for instance by developing global barcode and RFID standards), SATO UK has received GS1 certification for its newly developed patient wristband identification system.

Vernacare director Lesley Webster (left) and CEO Karen Haslam were congratulated by the Queen at a recent celebration event for 2011 Queen’s Award for Enterprise winners at Buckingham Palace, with the company’s Award (HEJ – June 2011) recognising its development of “the world’s first detergent-proof disposable wash bowl”.

With the next five years set to see over 40 new hospitals built in Singapore and Malaysia, Adrian Parkin, MD at Howorth Air Technology, the specialists in clean air for healthcare, has recently returned from a busy trip “putting the final touches” to the company’s new Howorth regional headquarters in Jurong East in Singapore.

Brandon Medical’s Symposia CoPAX system is an integrated control and display system that combines the display and distribution of high definition (HD) laparoscope images, audio-visual control and display functions, operating theatre records and PACS review, into a “clean, hygienic” single integrated wall unit.

A new on-site calibration service for biomedical test and measurement equipment has been introduced by Rigel Medical.

Rockfon’s new “enhanced and extended” MediCare modular ceiling range is HTM 60-compliant in categories 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

Air quality “appears to have been virtually ignored” in the British Standards Institute’s (BSI) new Publicly Available Specification, (PAS) 5748, which “provides a framework for the planning, application, and measurement of cleanliness in hospitals”, a leading UK ventilation duct cleaning specialist claims.

Members of IHEEM’s Welsh Branch recently toured the Ysbyty Ystrad Fawr in Caerphilly – set, on its completion this month, to be one of Wales’ first two hospitals to feature single-bed en suite rooms, and the largest new hospital currently under construction in the Principality.

Making increasing use of “internet exchange platforms”, such as LinkedIn, to enhance communication between European Members, an update on speaker and delegate numbers for the forthcoming IFHE 4th European Conference.

Risk management was in the spotlight at a recent IHEEM seminar held at Southampton General Hospital.