RECENT NEWS

Drivers Jonas LLP have been appointed by Barts and the London NHS Trust to advise on property issues in respect of its retained estate.

WSP secures multi-disciplinary hospital project WSP UK Ltd has secured an appointment for a new £64 million Surgical Centre which will be constructed at Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton.

NHS CEO David Nicholson learned more about Vernacare’s Green Ribbon hospital cleanliness project, via which patients are visibly reassured that their bed area has been thoroughly cleaned and disinfected via a green ribbon around the bed, during a recent visit to Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford.

A showcase mental health unit in Barnsley procured through the ProCure21 framework has been described as “one of the best” by the head of the NHS.

A three-month consultation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) on its new strategy “The Health and Safety System of Great Britain\Be Part of the Solution”, ends on 2 March, giving those with a key safety remit within healthcare just under a month to make their views known.

With investment in the Irish health sector continuing on both sides of the border, April’s Step Exhibitionsorganised Healthcare Ireland 2009 conference and exhibition is taking place from 1-2 April at the RDS, Dublin, against a fast-changing Irish healthcare backdrop.

Tribal’s architectural practice, Nightingale Associates, has worked with the multi-disciplinary consulting, support and delivery services organisation’s health planners to win the first contract tendered in Scotland under the NHS procurement initiative, Frameworks Scotland, with principal supply chain partner BAM Construction.

Annabelle Morgan has recently joined IHEEM as accounts manager, replacing Marie Luckham, who left in mid-January after a 16-year spell at the Institute.

A wide circle of family and friends attended a recent memorial service at St Mary’s Northleigh, Oxfordshire for Ron Swinden, an Institute member for many decades who also organised the five annual branch meetings in Oxford for a lengthy period, writes Peter Tankard. Ron Swinden died at home in Northleigh on 4 November 2008.

Arrangements for a new Voluntary Register for Authorising Engineers (AE), the goal of which is to help healthcare organisations identify persons suitable to undertake the AE (MGPS) role within their management structure, have been approved by IHEEM, and the Register is now open for applications.

IHEEM is supporting Health Service Journal’s annual knowledge and best practice forum for senior players in the world of NHS estates and healthcare buildings.

This year’s Healthcare Estates conference will take place on 27 and 28 October at the Harrogate International Centre, and IHEEM is now inviting potential speakers to submit papers for consideration by a 9 April deadline.

The AGM of IHEEM’s North Western branch this month will see career X-ray technology engineer and branch member Keith Feay discuss during a special presentation how, having repaired his first X-ray machine in 1965, he has recently begun helping charityrun hospitals in Malawi keep such equipment in good running order (pictured right).

MTX is currently close to completing, working for ProCure 21 principal supply chain partner Laing O’Rourke, a new modular surgical unit comprising two ultra-clean theatres and two 16-bed wards for the Stockport NHS Foundation Trust.

IHEEM is one of several prominent UK engineering bodies to be a signatory to a recent Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE) response to a consultation document on the future of science and engineering in the UK published by the Government’s Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) last July.

The first published results of a study into copper’s anti-microbial properties undertaken on a ward at Birmingham’s Selly Oak Hospital (Health Estate Journal – November 2008) have conclusively shown that surfaces made with materials containing the metal kill a wide range of potentially harmful microorganisms.

The potentially fatal consequences of specifying uncertified fire doors are highlighted in a hard-hitting new film developed to highlight the benefits of only specifying doors certified under the BWF-CERTIFIRE scheme.

The potentially fatal consequences of specifying uncertified fire doors are highlighted in a hard-hitting new film developed to highlight the benefits of only specifying doors certified under the BWF-CERTIFIRE scheme.

The first published results of a study into copper’s anti-microbial properties undertaken on a ward at Birmingham’s Selly Oak Hospital (Health Estate Journal – November 2008) have conclusively shown that surfaces made with materials containing the metal kill a wide range of potentially harmful microorganisms.

College lecturer Madelaine Moreland has become the 100,000th NHS patient to be treated on a mobile operating theatre.