RECENT NEWS

Speech recognition specialist Telephonetics has been included on the national framework agreement as a speech technology supplier to the NHS, by the NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency (NHS PASA).

Healthcare hotel services company Medirest has promoted two long-serving members of its domestic and cleaning staff to management roles. Penny Scaife has been appointed as domestic contract manager for Hinchingbrooke Healthcare NHS Trust, and Eleanor Rush has been made training manager for over 700 Medirest staff at five hospitals in the East Kent Trust.

Twice-Olympic gold rowing medallist, James Cracknell, recently opened the UK’s first ever dedicated cardiac CT service and experienced a “virtual reality tour” of the heart via a new sophisticated Siemens cardiac CT scanner at the UK’s leading cardiothoracic centre, Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Trust (RB&H). This unique cardiac scanning service, based at Royal Brompton Hospital, will help fight the battle against coronary heart disease.

Off-site construction specialist Yorkon has completed the first Independent Sector Treatment Centre to be built offsite. The £12 million Shepton Mallet NHS Treatment Centre was manufactured and fitted out by the company in less than 10 months and is believed to be the most complex modular building project ever undertaken in the UK. The client’s designer and project manager was Atkins.

Following many years of R&D, supported by intensive clinical trials, Toray Textiles is making medical-silver technology available to healthcare professionals across the UK through its range of “XStatic” silver-containing woven fabrics.

The 2005 Annual Seminar of the Healthcare Facilities Consortium (HFC), held at Chester College at the start of September, has been reported by delegates as having been “one of the best yet”. The specialist three day FM information seminar attracted around 130 delegates in all.

The intricacies of the provision and control of air conditioning in hospitals have been debated for decades, and the subject is examined in a special “Then and now” Health Estate Journal editorial spotlight published in this issue.

The two recent articles, in the August and September editions of Health Estate Journal, on the subject of thermometry raise a number of interesting points and issues worthy of further debate, writes Mike Arrowsmith, HEJ technical editor.

Washington Accord: The number of countries signed up to this mutual recognition agreement increased in the summer when JABEE (Japan Accreditation Board for Engineering Education) became a full signatory.

IHEEM is drawing further attention to its firm intention to improve communication with members.

It may come as a surprise to learn that IHEEM’s membership base is predominately within the private sector, with only 40% of its membership working for the NHS, writes Tammy Simmons, the Institute’s recruitment manager.

Engineers and architects can now modify and adapt to customer needs and facility changes at the touch of a button with the new Touch Screen Theatre Control Panel (eTCP). The product allows re-designs and modifications at any time without impacting performance, lead time or project handover.

To help hospital authorities in their fight against infection and crosscontamination that lead to HAIs, the Silent Gliss system 6100 overhead cubicle curtain track system is now supplied with BioCote surface treatments. The powder coated metal track profile, together with some associated plastic components all now provide a full 24/7 protection against the growth or proliferation of contagious and harmful organisms.

The NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency (PASA) has renewed Redstone Communications’ existing contract as a trusted supplier of communications technologies, helping NHS organisations to increase efficiency, save costs, improve productivity and, above all, deliver benefits.

Singer Ronan Keating made a special visit to officially open the West Anglia Pathology Services Cytology Screening Unit in Newmarket recently. The unit analyses cervical smear tests, providing a service for women across much of South Cambridgeshire and West Suffolk.

Julian E. Markham CBE FRICS FRSA has been elected chairman of the College of Estate Management at the University of Reading. The college is the leading provider of distance learning for the estates profession. It also provides a range of research work and special tailored tuition for the profession and industry.

Foremans Relocatable Building Systems has had a highly productive summer, with the launch in July of a new website for pre-owned modular buildings, closely followed by a warranty package for health authorities and Trusts covering the structure and external fabric of Foremans supplied modular systems for healthcare.

The £4.8 million Oak Park Children’s Services Centre in Havant is being built by Bluestone’s Fareham office for SCS under a Local Improvement Finance Trust (LIFT) Framework Agreement, and is on target for completion next February. The new centre will house a full range of treatment facilities from community paediatrics and physiotherapy, to child and family therapy and adolescent mental health. It will also provide a base for local community staff.

A £1.4 million project to create the Churchill Gisburn Clinic adult psychiatric facility in Lancashire has been completed for Covenant Healthcare by contractor Multibuild. The acute psychiatric unit has been designed to provide male patients with a tranquil environment and consists of 16 private bedrooms with en-suite facilities, a communal day room, dining room, gymnasium, games room, therapy rooms and consultation rooms.

Rehau has demonstrated its strength in the public sector with a contract to install both underfloor heating and cable management systems in the Diagnostic and Treatment Centre at Manchester’s new Withington Community Hospital.