RECENT NEWS

VCS, reportedly the UK’s leading manufacturer of emergency services vehicles, says it will invest more than £5 million in a new manufacturing facility for ambulances, police, and specialist vehicle conversions in Bradford this April.

The Planning Committee at Camden Council has resolved to grant planning permission for BDP’s proposed new entrance building for Great Ormond Street Hospital.

A collective failure to address diversity means the heating and hot water industry is missing out on crucial skills and putting its whole future at risk, the Building Engineering Services Association (BESA) maintains.

The Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust is one step closer to being able to deliver a new Women and Children’s Hospital for Cornwall after appointing BAM as its Principal Supply Chain Partner, the construction company has announced.

In partnership with electrical contractor W Portsmouth & Co, Ascom has been awarded the contract to supply and install healthcare communication technology to the BEACH (Births, Emergency Care and Critical Care, and Child Health) Building at the Royal Bournemouth Hospital.

Following its successful delivery of the Urgent Treatment Centre in 2022 for Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Integrated Health Projects (the alliance between VINCI Construction UK and Sir Robert McAlpine) has won a further design and build contract for the new emergency department at Swindon’s Great Western Hospital, and reconfiguration of its Children’s Emergency Unit.

Tilbury Douglas has started construction of the new Urgent and Emergency Care facility at Arrowe Park Hospital, on behalf of Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

Modern Methods of Construction specialist, MTX, has been named as a supplier on Crown Commercial Service’s Offsite Construction Solutions Framework, which ‘broadens the pre-manufactured building solution provision currently available to public sector buyers through CCS agreements’.

Nicolas Shiaelis and Dr Nicole Robb, Oxford University scientists, and co-founders of health tech company, Pictura Bio, have developed what they describe as ‘a world-first diagnostic test, powered by Artificial Intelligence’, that can identify known respiratory viruses such as influenza and COVID-19 within five minutes from a single nasal or throat swab.

Sodexo’s team at Nuffield Health Leicester Hospital has raised £6,000 for a life-saving mission organised by Leicester charity, Healing Little Hearts, to fund a team of medical professionals to travel to the An-Najah University Hospital in Nablus in Palestine to perform free heart surgery on five seriously ill children.

The UK should look to its engineering community for solutions to many of the serious social and economic challenges it is facing, according to the President of the Building Engineering Services Association (BESA).

Medescon, which has helped hospitals with their bed storage issues since 2015, was awarded the ‘Best Furniture & Fixtures Product 2022’ award at December’s Building Better Healthcare Awards 2022.

Tony Huggins has been appointed as managing director of David Bailey Furniture, which claims to be ‘the country’s fastest-growing manufacturer of specialist furniture products for the healthcare sector, schools, medical, and veterinary centres’.

The first phase of a new elective surgical hub built by MTX using fast-track modern Methods of Construction (MMC) has opened at the Clatterbridge Hospital on the Wirral.

Investment in calibration services is delivering benefits for University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, which has harnessed Calibrationhouse’s expertise for over 10 years to calibrate of hundreds of items of specialist medical electrical test equipment.

Following what it says was ‘the hottest summer on record’ in the capital last year, University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH) has launched a new carbon reduction strategy, ‘Critical Care For Our Climate’.

Vital Energi is implementing a range of low-carbon energy solutions at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital, in an £11.2 m contract which it says will reduce Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust’s carbon footprint by approximately 1,400 tonnes annually, and deliver financial savings.

No one can have failed to notice the impact of rising energy prices over the last year, and with NHS budgets already more stretched, dealing with the impact of energy prices at historic highs and the lack of budget certainty has become a major challenge.

Next Thursday, 9 February 2023, from 2.00-3.00 pm, Health Estate Journal will be hosting a webinar with energy management and sustainability consultancy, Inenco, with the session – presented by head of Procurement, Stuart Lea, and head of New Business, Jordan Rassas – designed to help attendees better understand the dynamics of the energy market, and in particular:

Visitors to The Innovation Lab 2023 event being hosted at Manchester Central on 23 February by Carlisle Support Services will be able to see, ‘on patrol’, Spot – a four-legged ‘dog-like robot’, with live demonstrations explaining ‘how robot dogs can assist with surveillance and security operations, while improving safety and efficiencies’.

New research from the University of Hertfordshire has shown that while delivering health services remotely ‘can be hugely beneficial to users’, there may be little to no financial saving – with some costing more than when conducted in-person.