RECENT NEWS

The “complex balancing act” required to manage the complete water lifecycle in healthcare facilities will be examined at three IHEEM seminars, starting next month.

Designed to help make a hospital stay less arduous for patients, Premier Telesolutions’ new EasiMedia slimline bedside patient entertainment and information terminal “combines the power of a larger terminal with the flexibility of a more compact, and unobtrusive, 10.1” touchscreen”.

Organisations looking for a waste-to energy solution, or keen to discover what funding might be available to help grow their recycling operation . . . .

Kier Eastern has awarded a £10 million sub-contract to Portakabin subsidiary Yorkon for the off-site construction of a new hospital building at Colchester General Hospital.

Wolseley, the specialist trade distributor of plumbing and heating products, has appointed Steve Ashmore as its UK managing director.

The “Temporary Isolation Unit” designed by Leicester-based Renfrew Group International to provide hospital wards with a flexible opportunity to contain infections and make the environment safer for patients (HEJ – October 2009) has won the company the “Partnership with the NHS award” in this year’s Medilink East Midlands Innovation Competition.

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.