RECENT NEWS

Starting to investigate and optimise commercial opportunities for IHEEM is the Institute’s newly-formed Business Development Board.

A special tribute was paid at the recently-held Institute annual general meeting to David Wicks who had set a record as the longest-serving member of IHEEM’s Council, from which he was retiring.

The Engineering Council UK Board has recently agreed to form a working group to discuss and produce a set of best practice guidelines for engineers on sustainability.

The Parliamentary Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee recently held a session to hear evidence relating to its inquiry into engineering.

IHEEM has replaced its Technical Committee with a Technology Platform Committee.

IHEEM will be supporting a Health Service Journal-hosted conference at the Inmarsat conference venue in London’s City Road on 11 September themed “Developing Sustainable Healthcare Buildings”.

IHEEM members need to face significant challenges presenting in healthcare engineering and estate management, and step into high profile strategic roles, Rob Smith, the Institute’s new president, told the IHEEM annual general meeting, held recently in London.

The Healthcare Commission’s latest annual performance assessment of English NHS Trusts, examining the performance of all 391 NHS Trusts in the year to March 31, 2008 against 24 core standards (with 44 parts), reveals that the overall compliance rate declared rose from 94.2% the previous year to 95.7% in 2007/2008.

Nuffield Hospitals, the UK’s largest healthcare charity, is re-branding as Nuffield Health in a move it says reflects its “new vision for healthcare” , and comes in the wake of the biggest programme of change in its 51-year history.

Trusts deemed by the Department of Health to be “failing” could see their management removed and a new management team brought in from other parts of the NHS, NHS Foundation Trusts or the private sector under plans announced by Health Minister Ben Bradshaw to “drive up standards of care and tackle underperformance in our hospitals and primary care Trusts”.

The NHS, reportedly Europe’s biggest employer, and a contributor of approximately 3% of England's total carbon dioxide emissions, has published for consultation a new Carbon Reduction Strategy committing the service as a whole to reducing emissions by 60% by 2050 in all areas, including procurement, travel and building energy use.

Renowned for its specialised technical training in both the healthcare and commercial FM sectors, training and conference centre Eastwood Park, in Falfield, Gloucestershire, launches its new identity next month (June 2008).

An acute admissions unit (AAU) said to be the largest in the UK has arrived on site at Watford General Hospital.

Over 900 visitors attended the first ever Healthcare Ireland conference and exhibition in Dublin from 23-24 April, with 94% of from the Irish Republic, 5% from Northern Ireland and 1% from mainland UK.

A £5 million energy efficiency programme, just “switched on” at Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust’s Birmingham Heartlands Hospital, is expected to save £688,000 a year, reducing carbon emissions and boosting resources for patient care.

More patients are rating NHS hospital care as “excellent”, a Healthcare Commission survey suggests.

The Healthcare Commission has launched what it says is the biggest inspection programme ever carried out in English NHS acute Trusts to verify that they are meeting infection control standards.

UK hospitals and health facilities can now benefit from detection of Legionella “ten times faster than before”, via a rapid detection process known as Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) now being offered by environmental analysis organisation ALcontrol Laboratories.

Agfa HealthCare has been selected by Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Trust to provide PACS (Picture Archiving & Communication System), RIS (Radiology Information System) and Cardiology IT “solutions” to “transform the Trust’s information workflow” by enabling a “completely free data flow” between the Royal Brompton and Harefield hospitals, despite the fact that each facility’s system will work independently of the other.

Welsh Minister for Health & Social Services Edwina Hart has said a large North Wales district acute hospital that does not meet current fire safety standards can continue being used, subject to interim measures, but hospital bosses say much of a central 1970s-built ward block needs rebuilding at an estimated £270 million cost.