RECENT NEWS

The digital Picture Archiving and Communications Systems (PACS) system, one of the key elements of the Department of Health’s Connecting for Health IT programme, has gone live in the last of the 127 NHS Trusts in England to adopt it, Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust.

NHS Fife has implemented what it claims is the UK’s first “joined up” patient record roll-out of its kind, having extended the scope of its Patient Administration System (AS) to include community and mental health services.

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University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust and Asteral have announced what they say is Europe’s largest standalone managed equipment service (MES) contract to date.

A National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) report published a year after the Department of Health (DoH) published its own initial look at patient safety says “many major milestones” have been reached but stresses there remains much to do.

Construction work has started on the new £136 m Salford Royal hospital designed by architects RyderHKS, which is working for the Balfour Beatty specialist healthcare concession company Consort Healthcare in conjunction with HSBC Infrastructure Fund Management on the Salford PFI project following financial close last September.

NHS Foundation Trusts applications will not be supported by Health Secretary Alan Johnson unless they are consistently hitting local targets on both MRSA and C.difficile, the Department of Health recently announced on unveiling a new multi-million pound infection control strategy.

Balfour Beatty Construction and partners Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Trust, Investors in the Community and Kier Facilities Management have announced formal close on the £36 m Northampton Mental Health PFI project.

A new mobile cleansing unit, said to be the country’s first of its kind, that enables hospital equipment including beds to be wheeled in, disinfected, and thoroughly steam cleaned, has been officially unveiled at the Norfolk and Waveney Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust in Norwich.

The newly completed Bexley Wing – home to one of Britain’s biggest cancer treatment centres, the St James’s Institute of Oncology – has been handed over on time and budget to the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.

An investigation is continuing into the cause of a major fire at London’s Royal Marsden Hospital in the early afternoon of 2 January which saw 79 patients and around 200 staff evacuated.

Fifty-two members of the IHEEM’s Northern Ireland Branch recently visited the vast Jaguar Body Assembly and Paint Factory in Castle Bromwich in the West Midlands, enjoying an informative tour with the focus on innovative engineering solutions used in production processes.

The IHEEM Southern Branch’s 2007 technical programme concluded with a presentation, at Fort Southwick, on auditing health and safety in hospital estates, by Alan Hambidge of Empathy Environmental Consultants.

Darryn Kerr, chairman of the IHEEM Education and Conference Committee, is set to chair a one-day event, “Rebuilding the NHS” being run by Health Service Journal magazine on 4 March 2008 at London’s Cavendish Conference Centre.

With waste management very firmly in the spotlight, IHEEM is continuing to inform and update members on the latest legislation with two seminars on the subject being held this month.

IHEEM’s London Branch will hold its AGM and dinner at the Henry VIII Hotel in Bayswater on Wednesday 13 February, with the event starting at 6.30 p.m. prompt.

Healthcare Estates 2008, being held at Harrogate International Centre (14-15 October), will have as its key theme “clean, safe and sustainable” environments for care, a particularly topical slant given the past year’s emphasis on the importance of clean, congenial and safe healthcare facilities for NHS patients.

The Royal Marsden Hospital in Chelsea has opened its doors to patients for the first time today (January 7) since part of the hospital suffered a serious fire on the afternoon of January 2.

Seventy-nine patients and around 200 staff had to be evacuated from London’s Royal Marsden Hospital in Chelsea – one of the world’s top cancer treatment centres – on the early afternoon of January 2 after a major fire broke out, destroying part of the building’s roof and damaging a number of other areas.

Clean air engineering specialist company Howorth has entered a new phase of its development with the buy-in of a new management team led by Andrew Steel.