RECENT NEWS

A £20 million 32-bed short-stay ward for Northwick Park Hospital has been created above London’s busiest A&E Department by Modern Methods of Construction specialist, MTX, in what the company says was one of its most complex build programmes to date.

Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust says a comprehensive decarbonisation and energy efficiency scheme recently completed at Horton General Hospital in Banbury will save a projected 1,200 tonnes of carbon annually.

King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, in collaboration with Floyd Slaski Architects, is leading the development of a new respiratory support unit (RSU) at Princess Royal University Hospital in Farnborough Common near Orpington in Kent, particularly in Outpatients E, G&A Ward.

A new £9.4 m surgical centre that will perform around 4,000 orthopaedic procedures a year has officially opened at Central Middlesex Hospital in London’s Park Royal.

Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust has announced Scarborough Group International (SGI) – a UK privately-owned property regeneration specialist – as the preferred developer to ‘transform’ its historic Old Medical School at Leeds General Infirmary into ‘a globally recognised health-tech innovation hub’.

Modular construction specialist, Portakabin – appointed design and build contractor on the project – has handed over a new HTM and HBN-compliant two-storey Endoscopy Unit at the Hospital of St Cross in Rugby to University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire (UHCW) NHS Trust.

Cherwell, the cleanroom microbiology solutions expert, has developed a new peel-apart pack settle plate product to support a UK national study investigating the relationship between the microbiological quality of operating theatre air and infection rate.

Spire Healthcare – reportedly the UK’s first independent sector healthcare provider to commit to become carbon neutral by 2030 – has embarked on ‘a landmark project’ to install 12,155 solar panels at all its 38 hospitals across England, Wales, and Scotland this year.

NHS Property Services has re-launched its established, award-winning space management system, NHS Open Space, which it says ‘will help benefit customers, landlords, and patients across the entire health system’.

Demand for biodegradable flushable wipes is set to rise significantly following the Government’s decision to ban versions containing plastic, but – says DDC Dolphin – many ‘flushable’ wipes are not fully biodegradable, and can thus still block sluice machines, toilets, drains, and sewers.

Academics at Aston University are teaming up with Stoke-on-Trent-based medical product company, PFE Medical, which supplies endoscopy and healthcare disposables, to improve the cleaning of endoscopes.

Siemens Healthineers has announced it is investing £250 million in a new facility in North Oxfordshire that will design and manufacture superconducting magnets used in healthcare facilities globally for MRI patient scans.

Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust (MFT) has launched a new initiative to reduce single-use water bottles, installing hydration stations at two high-footfall locations at two of its hospitals that dispense free water refills for visitors and staff using their own reusable drinks vessel.

Somerset NHS Foundation Trust Chief Executive, Peter Lewis, recently joined Trust clinicians, representatives from InHealth – which will provide radiology and endoscopy services, Trust strategic estates partner, Prime plc, and funders, M&G Investment, at the ground breaking for a new diagnostic centre at Yeovil District Hospital.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC) says it is improving care for people in some of Scotland’s most deprived communities – having converted a bus into a specialist clinic and taking it to their doorstep.

This summer Horne Engineering, the specialist manufacturer of thermostatic showers, taps, and valves, is encouraging specifiers across the healthcare estate to take advantage of the better weather to ‘explore innovative thermostatic and temperature control solutions’ for their facilities via its mobile exhibition, or Roadshow.

CABE (the Chartered Association of Building Engineers) has announced that Richard Harral, formerly the Association’s Technical director, has been formally announced as its new Chief Executive.

Genr8 Kajima Regeneration and its partnership with Newcastle University (Newcastle Genr8 Kajima) have secured planning consent for the £500 million Health Innovation Neighbourhood masterplan – which it says will which transform a former 29-acre general hospital site in the north-east city into ‘a new, ambitious neighbourhood’ combining housing, alongside public realm allied to modern healthcare, education, and community facilities that will ‘foster research, innovation, and enterprise’.

Willmott Dixon has been appointed as main contractor on the £60 m Greenheys development at Manchester Science Park for Bruntwood SciTech.

Monkwearmouth Development – a joint venture between Sir Robert McAlpine Capital Ventures and Argon Property Development Solutions, with funding from Railpen, has handed over its first development to NTW Solutions at Monkwearmouth Hospital in Sunderland.