RECENT NEWS

The £2.3 million Brune Medical Centre development in Gosport has been officially handed over to Hampshire PCT by Solent Community Solutions (SCS).

This year’s JCT Povey Lecture, which takes place on Thursday, 15 November at the Institute of Physics in London, will be given by Bob White, chairman of Constructing Excellence in the Built Environment, non-executive chairman of Mace and chief executive of Building Futures Limited. The subject will be “innovation in the change agenda”.

According to the Healthcare Commission, the NHS needs to ensure that it consistently acts on and learns from complaints by patients. Publishing the first audit of how well the NHS handles complaints, the watchdog says it has found considerable variation in performance across the country.

Trevor Wills is joining the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust as director of estates and facilities, based in Reading.

Off-site construction specialist and Portakabin subsidiary Yorkon has won a £1.5 m healthcare building contract at Frenchay Hospital in Bristol.

Working with developers Laing O’Rourke, and consultants AE Robb and WSP, P+HS Architects has announced the start of work on site to deliver an £8.9 million primary care centre in Washington, Tyne and Wear, as part of the NHS ProCure21 programme.

A survey of senior healthcare policy makers and advisors across the European Union shows widespread support for an increase in Early Health initiatives such as prevention, screening and early diagnosis, but not at the expense of current healthcare budgets allocated for treatment.

Doncaster Community Solutions (DCS) has announced financial close on four state-of-the-art LIFT (Local Improvement Finance Trust) health centre developments in Moorends, Hatfield, Edlington and Askern.

Dr Graham Spittle, chairman of the Technology Strategy Board, has welcomed the publication of the Sainsbury Review of the Government’s Science and Innovation policies, saying that it provides “significant opportunities”.

An expansion of cancer screening, with a push to further reduce waiting times, may lead to a new role on the NHS estate for the UK fleet of mobile endoscopy units.

Much media attention has recently been focused on a Healthcare Commission report detailing significant failings in infection control at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust.

Andy Wavell I Eng FIHEEM was given an opportunity to attend the IFHE Annual Council Meeting held recently in conjunction with the annual conference of the Canadian Healthcare Engineering Society (CHES) in Calgary, Canada.

IHEEM members may have noticed in the Institute News section of last month’s Health Estate Journal that the Institute’s secretariat has signed up to the CIBSE 100 days of Carbon Cleanup.

Michael Touhey MSc IEng MIHEEM MIET and EurIng Carl McKenzie BSc (Hons) CEng MCIBSE FIHEEM MASHRAE, were, at this year’s Healthcare Estates Conference in Harrogate, presented with the Northcroft Silver Medal for their Health Estate Journal article ‘Natural ventilation needs supplementing’ (HEJ, October 2006).

James Rees, IHEEM recruitment and membership manager, has left the Institute to move into the IT sector.

IHEEM’s 2007 Healthcare Estates Conference and Exhibition, staged in Harrogate on 16 and 17 October, was a resounding success according to visitor and exhibitor feedback received at the Institute’s stand at the show.

Introduced in 1992, the Engineering Doctorate (EngD) has been something of a “Cinderella” qualification, its true worth never fully appreciated by the profession as a whole. This may change after a recent review of the EngD programme concluded that this work-based, postgraduate award has brought significant benefits to a wide range of companies and industrial sectors.

Almost unnoticed by the engineering profession, the Government is attempting to redefine the term “professional engineer” in a way that will ultimately help no one, apart from this country’s international competitors, ECUK says.

Medical lighting specialist Brandon Medical has won Phase 3 of the contract to equip University College London Hospital (UCLH) with its range of examination lamps. In addition to Brandon’s Astralites and range of medical room lighting, UCLH ordered and installed a significant amount of Coolview ceiling-mounted lights.

The air conditioning company Daikin UK has introduced a range of floor standing and wall mounted air conditioning systems, specifically designed to offer facilities managers in the health industry a visually striking and highly energy efficient solution for their premises.