RECENT NEWS

IHEEM is to get a refurbished website to meet the growing membership needs of information exchange. The Institute’s Council has agreed to a refurbishment of the site, which it is considered is becoming “stale”, and “no longer meets the quality benchmark that IHEEM’s healthcare engineers and facility managers seek from their Institute”.

IHEEM raised £2,629.78 at the 2009 Annual Conference in Harrogate for the Help for Heroes (H4H) charity, which supports wounded service personnel.

IHEEM will be supporting The Big Bang at Manchester Central in March – a three-day event developed in partnership with over 70 organisations from business and industry, Government, and the science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) community, aimed at stimulating interest in science and engineering among young people, and encouraging them to consider a career in the field.

This year’s Healthcare Estates conference and exhibition, in early October, is to be held in Manchester – at the city’s Manchester Central (formerly G-MEX, pictured) – for the first time in the show’s history.

The International Federation of Hospital Engineering (IFHE), of which IHEEM is a national member, remains in a healthy financial position, with a “better than expected income” from its last Congress, held in November 2008 in Barcelona, members of the Federation’s Executive and Council learned at recent meetings in Buenos Aires.

The recent Healthcare Estates conference and exhibition was attended by over 1,400 delegates and visitors, similar to the record attendance achieved at the 2008 event despite the current challenging UK economic climate.

An Taoiseach Brian Cowen has announced the selection of Dublin-based Murray O’Laoire/Brian O’Connell Associates and the London studio of international firm NBBJ Architects to design the new Children’s Hospital of Ireland in Dublin and Ambulatory & Urgent Care Centre at Tallaght.

A 20-page A4 booklet detailing his experiences as a blind person and including helpful practical tips on the considerations for the visually impaired, has been produced by Klaus Kopp (pictured), an elected public Governor representing Basildon members of South Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (SEPT).

Sodexo has won its second FM contract from one of UK’s largest NHS Trusts – the Barking, Havering and Redbridge University NHS Trust – securing a fiveyear contract with King George Hospital, Ilford, to provide total facilities management (TFM) services.

One enthusiastic participant in CIBSE’s 2009 “100 Hours of Carbon Clean up Campaign”, launched on 3 September this year (HEJ – October 2009) is the Spire Tunbridge Wells Hospital in Kent, which ran its first “Energy Week” in late September as part of the private healthcare group’s “100 Hours” campaign.

The Guys’ and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust has become one of London’s first NHS Trusts to produce its own electricity and heat to power its hospitals – in move it says will save the equivalent CO2 of around 17,000 passengers flying to New York.

The preferred bidder to deliver Selby’s new joint community hospital and civic centre development has been chosen following a comprehensive tender process.

Catalyst Healthcare (Manchester) (Catalyst), the PFI consortium managing the Manchester New Hospitals Project, has appointed two new assistant general managers for facilities management on the project.

Health secretary Andy Burnham announced at last month’s Labour Party Conference that the party intends to cancel car parking charges for NHS hospital inpatients over the next three years, giving each a permit for the length of their stay which family and friends can use.

Marshall-Tufflex’s antimicrobial Bio Trunking Solutions will claim their 15 minutes of fame on national television. The cable management manufacturer has joined forces with NHS247 (www.nhs247.com), an on-line and independent healthcare website, to discuss infection control within hospitals and other healthcare environments.

Staff who had delivered some of the first training courses at Eastwood Park, the Gloucestershire-based training establishment for hospital support services (HEJ – Septermber 2009), were among the 70 guests to attend a recent 40th anniversary reception.

Vernacare has doubled production of its single-use wash bowl to meet worldwide demand in the fight against hospital-acquired infections.

Hot on the heels of the “Design Bugs Out” initiative (HEJ – June 2009), which saw designers, the Design Council, and the Department of Health’s HCAI Technology Innovation Programme work together to develop infection-beating products, a further collaborative innovation scheme has been launched, this time focusing on patient privacy and dignity.

Ten pre-owned steel-framed modules recycled and refurbished for the project, enabling it to be competed in just 11 weeks, form a new theatre training centre at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle-upon-Tyne – reportedly the North of England’s first clinical training facility of its kind.

Luton & Dunstable NHS Foundation Trust has engaged Medical Air Technology to add a further 130 m2 operating theatre to increase the Luton and Dunstable Hospital’s capacity to undertake orthopaedic surgery.