RECENT NEWS

In March 2007, the ETB will be working with the British Association for the Advancement of Science to expand the UK's National Science Week public engagement programme to become National Science and Engineering Week.

IHEEM membership manager Tammy Simmons left the Institute in December.

Patients in the West Midlands are to benefit from closer-to-home healthcare through the largest fleet of mobile medical units ever assembled in the UK.

Eric Wright Construction has won a contract to build a new faculty for the school of dentistry at the University of Central Lancashire.

Kier Northern has been awarded a £7.3 million design and build contract by Barnsley Primary Care Trust under the DoH Procure 21 Framework to provide a new adult acute mental health unit, which will be based at Kendray hospital.

The tenth anniversary of the National Biomedical and Clinical Engineering Conference was celebrated at the NEC in Birmingham with the theme "Convergence of Technologies - Past, Present and Future." The conference was sponsored by Philips Medical Systems, who mounted a display of historic equipment to mark the occasion. In addition, a new website (www.nationalbiomedconference.co.uk) was launched for the conference .

The British Standards Institution (BSI) has published its latest guide to medical electrical equipment.

The Tees Valley office of White Young Green (WYG), consultants to the built, natural and social environment, has been appointed to provide mechanical and electrical design engineering services on a £9m healthcare project at Middleton St George Hospital in Darlington, County Durham.

Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has reduced the cost of maintenance by installing Shire Systems' FrontLine Maintenance Management software.

IHS, which provides critical technical information and decision-support tools including an online service for construction professionals in the UK called The Construction Information Service, has announced that it has signed a sole partnership agreement with CIRIA, which provides performance improvement products and services for the UK construction industry.

After more than four years as chief executive, Tim Broyd has left CIRIA. The Board has now appointed Bill Healy to serve as new CIRIA's chief executive.

Canterbury Christ Church University is the first university in the UK to pilot MRSA protected uniforms.

The new Evelina Children's Hospital has scooped another award, this time the British Construction Industry (BCI) Judges' Special Award for a building that the judges consider to be particularly inspirational.

Architectural practice, DKS Architects, which has moved into new purpose-built accommodation at Stokesley Business Park, has secured its third major scheme outside the region with healthcare developer Montpelier Estates.

The new Dumbledore Primary Care Centre in Handcross, West Sussex, under construction by specialist developer Cathedral Healthcare, has reached a major milestone en route to its scheduled completion in early 2007 with a topping-out ceremony held on the site.

Sheffield architects Race Cottam Associates have designed a new care facility for the city.

IHEEM has welcomed its new chief executive, John Long MBE, who succeeds Bill Pym.