RECENT NEWS

Balfour Beatty Engineering Services (BBES), one of the UK’s largest mechanical and electrical building services businesses, has been awarded a £6.7 million contract by Vinci to design and install mechanical and electrical services for a new primary care and treatment centre, the St Catherine’s Health Centre, in Birkenhead on the Wirral, for Wirral NHS Trust.

A planning application for a new community hospital in Cockermouth, Cumbria, has been submitted to local authority Allerdale Borough Council. Last November the town experienced severe flooding, and since then a temporary portable cabin-type village on the existing hospital site has been used to house local GP practices.

The Engineering Council says a recent survey of registered engineers “provides sound evidence” that those holding the professional engineering qualifications Chartered Engineer (CEng), Incorporated Engineer (IEng), or Engineering Technician (EngTech), are likely to have held on to their jobs during the recession.

Post-mortem rooms within the mortuary at the new Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham incorporate Brandon Medical medical lighting and audiovisual equipment.

Tens of thousands of patients annually are still being placed in mixed sex accommodation without clinical justification, new data released by the Department of Health suggest.

A drug safety safety expert has warned nearly 70 medical experts at an educational study day of regulators’ increasing concern that cold chain pharmaceutical products are being damaged by unacceptable temperatures and humidity during shipment or storage.

The new ProCure21+ framework, which officially commences on 1 October, and under which work can start on projects within six weeks, will save the NHS over £200 million in procurement costs, and help upgrade hospitals more quickly, Health Minister Simon Burns has said.

IHEEM is always keen to further interest in engineering as a career, whether via its national and branch seminars, the Annual Conference, presentations by members with experience in particular areas, or through mentoring.

With under a month to go now before the opening of this year’s Healthcare Estates conference and exhibition, potential delegates have an added incentive to attend, with news that the deadline for conference registration at the special “earlybird” discount rate has been extended, to 17 September.

A BBC story last month claimed the NHS in England faces “a total bill” (over the contracts’ lifetime) of £65 billion for new PFI hospitals, meaning annual repayments take up more than 10% of some Trusts’ turnover.

Sixty-five years ago this month, as the Allied Forces celebrated Japan’s unconditional surrender, the first ever edition of “The Hospital Engineer Newsletter”, the forerunner to Health Estate Journal, was published.

Energy and sustainability remains the biggest issue facing facilities managers, according to registration figures for the IHEEM Annual Conference. Many prospective delegates are also looking for ideas and answers on design and construction and developing the lean estate.

The IHEEM Annual Conference at Healthcare Estates will open with a keynote address by David Flory CBE. In “The Future Direction of Healthcare” the Deputy NHS Chief Executive will give delegates an insight into the new way forward for the NHS.

Provider of mobile surgical services Vanguard and integrated FM specialist Generating Solutions Group (GSG) have formed a “strategic partnership” through which Vanguard’s provision of sophisticated mobile units will be bolstered by GSG’s offering of “highly specialised logistics, facilities management, and engineering services”.

Newcastle University has awarded fitout, construction, and management services specialist ISG a £7.1 million project by to create a “world class” health and ageing research facility at Newcastle General Hospital.

A healthcare facility claimed to be the UK’s first publicly-funded hospital to feature single bedrooms with en suite facilities throughout is on track to complete by mid-September, the contractor has confirmed.

Jon Prichard, who served on the Engineering Council’s Board from 2003 – 2007, and is currently chairman of trustees for the organisation’s pension scheme, has been appointed as the Council’s CEO.

Balfour Beatty Construction is to undertake the £15.9 million conversion of an existing office building at the Wellington Hospital in London’s St John’s Wood, said to be Europe’s largest private hospital, into a fivestorey “state-of-the-art” medical facility.

Health Facilities Scotland (HFS) has published the first consultation draft of a new guidance document designed to assist those planning and designing new or upgraded Central Decontamination Units, or CDUs. Views on the new document, “Scottish Health Planning Note 13 Part 1 – Decontamination Facilities:

The new Well Street Surgery in London’s Hackney, designed by architects Stock Woolstencroft, has opened on the site of a Victorian textile factory in Shore Road, close to the practice’s former home.