RECENT NEWS

The Department of Health has awarded InHealth Molecular Imaging Solutions (IHMI) a PET/CT NHS diagnostic imaging service contract to deliver PET/CT services throughout the south of England, commencing this month.

Henderson Green, a south Coast-based building services engineering consultancy, is assisting in a pilot study to assess the environmental impact of new paediatric operating theatres being built at Southampton General Hospital.

The University of St Andrews is planning a new £45 m School of Medicine and Sciences which it says will not only lead collaborative research in areas such as cancer, health psychology and infectious diseases, but will also be one of the first UK medical schools with research facilities fully integrated with the other sciences and key university disciplines.

The British Lung Foundation and HSE’s current emphasis on “better education” for those dealing with asbestos is timely and “certainly relevant” as regards older healthcare buildings, a top asbestos consultant has said.

Tradespeople, and, it seems, builders and gasfitters particularly, are risking developing the incurable cancer mesothelioma and other serious lung diseases through ignorance about how to handle asbestos, the British Lung Foundation has warned.

A recent survey by ProCure21, the NHS and Department of Health’s construction partnering programme, revealed that all the programme’s Principal Supply Chain Partners (PSCPs) are actively supporting the Construction Skills Certification Scheme (CSCS).

Primary Plus, the specialist healthcare project management company that modernises primary care premises for the NHS and GPs, is celebrating landing £1.3 m worth of new business.

An Association of Perioperative Practice (AfPP) request for information from members on the standard of outsourced decontamination of surgical instruments has seen three-quarters of those with experience of such services critical of their effectiveness.

A comprehensive carbon-saving programme, implemented by the Medway NHS Trust’s environmental team at three non-clinical buildings at Gillingham’s Medway Maritime Hospital, has seen the Trust win a top Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) award.

Chris Parker (pictured) has joined IHEEM as the Institute’s new recruitment and membership manager.

Phil Nedin will be among the speakers at a one-day event examining “21st Century hospital ventilation” and being staged by the Institute of Mechanical Engineers’ Healthcare Division at the IMechE’s 1, Birdcage Walk headquarters in London on 15 May.

Hong Kong was the location of a recent joint IHEEM/ CIBSE and Hong Kong Institution of Engineers (HKIE) technical seminar considering the “external human environment”, which was attended by over 100 Chinese CIBSE and IHEEM members and facilitated by the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) and HKIE.

IHEEM is set to hold a number of seminars on resilience and emergency planning during June in London and Birmingham.

Over expert 40 speakers will offer information on topics including design, sustainability, energy, infection control, and engineering at Healthcare Estates 2008, which takes place at Harrogate International Centre from 14-15 October.

The Department of Health and HM Treasury have given the final sign-off for building to start later this month (March) of a new £227 million PFI-funded hospital at Pembury near Tunbridge Wells, Kent, set to be the UK’s first large acute hospital with 100% single in-patient rooms.

London’s National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery has taken delivery, in a single day, of three large MRI magnets from Siemens Healthcare’s Total Imaging Matrix family as part of the ongoing project to complete the building of the hospital’s new imaging centre.

German private health services provider MediClin, which runs 30 hospitals throughout its home country, estimates it will reduce by at least £11,300 a year the heating bills at the first of the facilities to be fitted with an energy management system based on wireless sensors which shut off radiators when windows are opened.

Nuffield Hospitals, the UK’s largest notfor- profit independent healthcare provider, has agreed to sell nine of its hospitals to General Healthcare Group (GHG).

Portakabin has worked closely with the estates team at Dunfermline’s Queen Margaret Hospital and the hospital’s architect to design a new standalone ante-natal unit in just 16 weeks after hospital chiefs decided more space was needed in the main building for a new medical admissions unit.

Cases of MRSA bloodstream infection fell by 18% at hospitals in England between July and September last year compared to the previous quarter, the latest Health Protection Agency (HPA) figures show, while reported cases of C. difficile dropped by 21%.