RECENT NEWS

With 2010 likely, with the forthcoming general election, to be a pivotal one for UK healthcare estates and facilities personnel, this year’s Healthcare Estates conference and exhibition will, promise the organisers, “be packed full of interesting content reflecting the needs of all those responsible for the planning, design, construction, maintenance, operation, and management, of both public and private healthcare facilities”.

Members can now submit nominations for three of the five national awards to be presented by IHEEM at this year’s Healthcare Estates conference and exhibition in Manchester.

Members can now submit nominations for three of the five national awards to be presented by IHEEM at this year’s Healthcare Estates conference and exhibition in Manchester.

Birmingham Children’s Hospital (BCH) has admitted its first patients to what staff claim is Britain’s most advanced children’s kidney unit. At its heart is an entertainment system that includes a large, computerised “Imagination Light Canvas” in the reception area, manufactured by Philips, and the world’s first, that measures 3 m by 1.5 m, and features 144 LED points that react to pressure to display colourful animations and shapes.

Taking part in this year’s London Marathon on Sunday 25 April, where she will be raising funds for Macmillan Cancer Support, will be IHEEM accounts manager Annabelle Morgan.

UK’s “national fleet” of mobile operating suites heading to Europe in major international campaign by Vanguard Healthcare.

Manufacturer of disposable hospital curtains Marlux Medical now offers customers a new product – the “Enviro Bag”, for the removal and recycling of used curtains.

A Welsh Health Board has contributed input during refinements to Vernacare’s new porter’s chair (HEJ – February 2010). Developed to be easy to clean and comfortable, the chair incorporates a footrest that rises automatically when the patient is safely seated, requiring no hand contact.

The British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM) can now be found on social networking site “Twitter”, sending regular “tweets” to UK FM professionals on its forthcoming Annual Conference and general FM news.

Multidisciplinary building design, civil engineering, environment, management, and transport consultancy Capita Symonds has acquired healthcare consultancy Inventures for an undisclosed sum.

How to make the best use of building energy management systems (BEMS) will be the focus of a series of free seminars to be held by Trend Control Systems at various UK locations beginning this month.

Former Health Minister and respected surgeon Lord Ara Darzi met with Brandon Medical at Dubai’s recent Arab Health 2010 conference and exhibition.

Chloride, one of Europe’s leading suppliers of uninterruptible power supply systems (UPS) and services, has completed the acquisition of AES (Alternative Engineering Systems), which provides generator service and supply in the Republic of Ireland.

The deal to build Selby’s new community hospital and civic centre development has now been signed, with work scheduled to begin this month.

Ongoing carbon reduction initiatives, including audits of out-of-hours energy use, the establishment of a 10-strong energy champion team, and a successful Energy Week last September (HEJ – November 2009) all contributed to the Spire Tunbridge Wells Hospital’s winning of the Best Carbon Saving Award on behalf of Spire Healthcare as a whole at last month’s 2010 CIBSE Low Carbon Performance Awards, presented at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel.

“Ireland’s only complete event for FM professionals” is how the organisers of the Facilities Management Ireland conference and exhibition, which opens later this month at the RDS in Dublin, describe the two-day event.

Vanguard Healthcare Solutions is to provide London’s Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, with which its has worked since 2006, with a mobile operating theatre and ward until the end of this year

A range of former workhouse and sanatorium buildings dating back to the 1800s on an eight-acre Birkenhead site is to be replaced by a new £32 million, four-storey health centre, designed by architects One and to be built by VINCI Construction UK.

Chronic skills shortages will spell disaster for the UK’s construction and engineering sectors unless the Government accelerates young people’s training, chairman of training provider to the building services engineering sector JTL and Unite assistant general secretary Les Bayliss (pictured) warned during last month’s National Apprenticeship Week.

With the Carbon Reduction Commitment’s official introduction from the first of next month (see HEJ – February 2010), and carbon saving now high on the agenda for all healthcare estates personnel, the Institute is keen to draw members’ attention to a series of seminars it is staging this year, “Planning to achieve carbon reduction commitment targets for healthcare premises – practical information and guidance”, the first of which takes place this month.