RECENT NEWS

A new e2.25 million cancer care unit at Cork University Hospital, designed by architects Watkins Gray International for the Irish Health Service Executive’s estates department, and built by Pierse Contracting, is now complete.

The Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust has held open days to mark completion of its newly-built £75 million Roseberry Park mental health facility at the St Luke’s Hospital, Middlesbrough site.

Remote energy monitoring, providing an in-house energy management advice service to sites, reducing generator use, and improving the efficiency of its fleet, are among measures construction company BAM Construct UK says culminated in it reducing its carbon footprint by 11% in 2009 compared with 2008.

I write to comment on the news story, “Estates manager convicted of £245,000 fraud” (HEJ – May 2010). I found the headline a little sensationalist, and think that we need to take stock of where the NHS and IHEEM members are as regards qualifications.

Penlon, a small Oxfordshire-based company which claims to be the only UK-based independent manufacturer of anaesthesia systems, was recently awarded a 2010 Queen’s Award for Enterprise in international trade for its “continued record growth” and commercial success in overseas markets, where its revenues have “more than doubled” over the past six years.

Claustrophobic and bariatric patients in Surrey and West Sussex will, the unit’s supplier says, be the UK’s first to benefit from “the widest whole body MRI scanner available”, improving their experience and diagnosis, and reducing waiting times.

Galliford Try has been awarded a £22 million contract to build a new health centre in Coventry as part of its LIFT framework partnering agreement with Coventry Care Partnership.

With the recent change of government, Andrew Lansley CBE, MP for South Cambridgeshire, and former Shadow Health Secretary, has been appointed Secretary of State for Health.

The final phase of the £45 million New South Wing at Northern Ireland’s Altnagelvin Hospital has been completed. Designed by HLM Architects in association with Hall Black Douglas, and built by Farrans (Construction), it is the most recent element of new build clinical accommodation in a £150 million masterplan of redevelopment works to upgrade and provide new facilities.

The impact that good building design and a “positive healthcare environment” can have on those suffering from mental illness, and the challenges facing architects, planners, and estates and facilities teams with the increasing dispersal of mental healthcare from large institutional sites to multiple community locations, will be addressed at an IHEEM-supported BBH conference at the Holborn Bars in London on 30 June.

The IHEEM “Planning for Uncertainty – the role of practical risk management in estates” seminar,

The Institute is pleased to welcome as a new Member George McDonagh, who, having worked for two decades in hospital central sterile services departments as a maintenance engineer, later becoming a Test Person, is now passing on his knowledge as a lecturer (and validation engineer) at the University of Glasgow Dental School.

IHEEM now has a second membership officer, with the recruitment of Kate Newman (pictured), who will “job share” in the role with existing staff member Clair Sandford.

The management of large, and often complex, water systems in healthcare facilities, and the need to maintain excellent hygiene, will be discussed at three IHEEM “Water systems” seminars in Leeds on 8 September, Birmingham on 22 September, and London on 10 November.

Having completed her first ever London Marathon on 25 April, raising almost £1,000 (including gift aid) for Macmillan Cancer Support, the Institute’s accounts manager Annabelle Morgan (HEJ – April 2010), has already put her name in the ballot for next year’s race.

With the opening of October’s Healthcare Estates 2010 event at its new Manchester Central venue (pictured) just months away, IHEEM says “a record-breaking number of high quality papers” have been submitted for the conference, while the range of topics has been significantly broadened.

The South-West branch’s evening seminar programme will continue this month and in September with two informative presentations.

Readers are reminded that the closing date for nominations for the 2010 IHEEM awards is 30 June (HEJ – April 2010).

Carrow Road, home of Norwich City FC, will be the venue for an evening meeting of IHEEM’s East Anglia branch on 1 July, at which Chris Parker, IHEEM recruitment and membership manager, will highlight the potential for future activities for a branch that, by its own admission, has not been especially active in recent years.

The media has been paying much attention to recent political discussion concerning the implementation of cuts and cost-saving measures across the NHS. While little has been said specifically about precisely where these cuts will be, or how efficiency savings will be made, it is clear that the NHS faces a prolonged period of cuts, and the need for increased efficiency during what are sure to be difficult times for us all.