RECENT NEWS

Care Services Minister Ivan Lewis has announced a £1 million grant to help build what it is claimed will be the world’s first purpose-built institute for research into end-of-life care, at King’s College Hospital, south-east London.

IHEEM is supporting a Health Facilities Scotland event headlined “Facilities at the Heart of Healthcare”, at Crieff Hydro Hotel, Perthshire on 4 and 5 November.

IHEEM’s North West branch has published details of three forthcoming presentations for its members on technical and legislative issues.

IHEEM would like to congratulate the following who had Institute grades awarded recently:

Thermal imaging survey specialist Pixel Thermographics has become an IHEEM company affiliate.

Former president of IHEEM and the International Federation of Hospital Engineering, Lawrence (Laurie) Hadley OBE, healthcare engineer, died during August 2008, aged 83.

In a few days the Harrogate International Centre will host (from October 14-15) Healthcare Estates – the UK’s largest and most comprehensive conference and exhibition for all involved in the design, construction, maintenance and management of healthcare facilities and environments.

Haigh will be showing their latest development in bedpan macerator technology with a new disposer which is smaller than any other machine on the market, has a faster cycle time, along with lower water and electrical consumption. This will further extend the Panaway range to three models with the award winning Panaway and recently launched Classic+ continuing to be available.

With time an increasingly precious commodity in today’s frenetic business world, the organisers of this year’s Healthcare Estates Conference and Exhibition promise that visiting the event will be an investment worth making; indeed one that will be “repaid many times over in subsequent time and costs saved”.

CIBSE (the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers) has launched a campaign offering organisations with large, publicly accessed buildings free guidance to help cut the cost of the new Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) and Display Energy Certificates (DECs) in return for a commitment to pledge 100 staff hours to energyreducing activities.

Galliford Try has been awarded a £3.8 million contract to build Europe’s largest IVF Centre of its kind at Liverpool Women’s Hospital.

The Department of Health has launched a new national framework procurement, Express LIFT, to extend access to the LIFT (Local Improvement Finance Trust) scheme to all Primary Care Trusts wishing to make use of it.

Applicants for Eastwood Park’s new Medical Technologies Foundation Degree, which “goes beyond” the level 3 NVQs previously available in servicing and decontamination of medical equipment, have only until the end of this month to get their application in if they wish to start the degree this October.

The NHS Confederation is to separate off its specialised facilities support company, the Healthcare Facilities Consortium (HFC) following an “extensive 18-month market review”.

Devereux Architects and Allies & Morrison have been appointed to design a new £41 million clinical research facility for King’s College London (KCL) at Denmark Hill, South East London.

Improved patient care and safety, higher patient and clinician satisfaction, enhanced “process efficiency”, savings in clinical time, and fewer patients delays, were among the benefits of Belfast Royal Victoria Hospital’s recent deployment at of a Vocera Communications hands-free voice communication system.

Hospedia, a new company which, subject to OFT approval, looks set to run over 80,000 NHS bedside systems UK-wide until now operated by Patientline UK and Premier Telesolutions, says up to 10 million hospital patients a year can expect “lower incoming call charges, better service and more reliable equipment”.

The Conservative Party says figures recently obtained by it under the Freedom of Information Act suggest the cleanliness of most NHS hospitals in England is “threatened by frequent invasions of rats, fleas, bedbugs, flies and cockroaches”.

The Institute of Healthcare Engineering and Estate Management would like to congratulate the following, who had IHEEM grades awarded recently:

IHEEM branch secretaries and individual Institute members with interesting news on branch events, personal career triumphs and challenges, and any other stories of a general estates-related nature they feel would interest Health Estate Journal’s readers are being encouraged to submit text and photos to editor Jonathan Baillie for potential inclusion in HEJ’s Institute News pages.