RECENT NEWS

With updates to Approved Document L of the Building Regulations ruling out non-condensing direct-fired water heaters having just come into force, the hot water industry will be instrumental in ensuring ‘a seamless switch’ to higher efficiency condensing water heaters.

Cardiac rhythm management and bradycardia pacemaker implantation services have been enhanced for patients at the Countess of Chester Hospital in Chester with the installation of a new Alphenix Sky ceiling-mounted C-arm there.

Östra Sjukhuset in Gothenburg, one of four sites that form Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Sweden’s largest university hospital, claims to be ‘setting the global standard in sustainable hospital waste and linen management’ after appointing Envac to install its optical linen sorting technology as part of a major modernisation programme.

Government must ‘seize the post-pandemic opportunity’ to mandate long-term improvements to infection control in commercial, public, and residential buildings ‘to reduce the transmission of future waves of COVID-19, new pandemics, seasonal influenza, and other infectious diseases’.

The first UK-wide national Young Academy – a network of early career researchers and professionals – is being launched today (14 June).

Patient safety, and the NHS’s ability to drive down waiting lists and hit performance targets, are being ‘severely hampered’ because the NHS has been ‘plagued by one of the worst records for capital investment in the OECD over the past decade’.

Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust has launched what it dubs ‘a ground-breaking digital platform set to revolutionise the way patient care is delivered to children and young people’.

The Rutherford Health Group, which operates a network of cancer and diagnostic centres in the UK, has announced today (6 June) that an application is to be made to place the Group into liquidation.

The UK’s largest single-site maternity unit is being planned in Leeds as part of the development of two new hospitals on the Leeds General Infirmary site – providing what Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust describes as ‘a revolution in patient-centred care’.

NG Bailey has been appointed to deliver a £5.3m installation of new mechanical and electrical (M&E) services for a new Urgent and Emergency Care Department for Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

A report published on 25 May by the UK’s Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB) concludes that the impact of ineffective decontamination of surgical instruments ‘can be far-reaching’, with the potential consequences ranging from the risk of severe infection, to ‘the frustration of cancelled operations due to dirty equipment’.

Leading finance and accounting, digital, procurement, and workforce services provider, NHS Shared Business Services (NHS SBS), has launched its ‘second-generation’ Hard Facilities Management framework agreement.

The construction of a new theatre building at Poole Hospital by Sir Robert McAlpine has reached a significant milestone, with a traditional ‘topping out’ ceremony.

Illustrator and reportage artist, Emily Thomas, has been working with CW+, the official charity of Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, as part of her residency at West Middlesex University Hospital, producing a collection of illustrations which capture and celebrate the workforce there.

The Mayor of Greater Manchester and former Health Secretary, the Rt Hon Andy Burnham, will appear before a cross-party inquiry into the future of healthcare infrastructure next month to provide his expert insight.

The go-ahead has been granted for a new 70,000 m2 hospital, to be built on the existing Overdale Hospital site in St Helier, in what is expected to be one of the largest public projects ever undertaken in Jersey.

A turf-cutting ceremony has taken place to mark the official start of a £47 m scheme to build a new Urgent and Emergency Care Centre at Scarborough Hospital – the largest capital scheme ever undertaken by the Trust.

Professor Catherine Noakes, one of the leading experts in ventilation and the transmission of airborne infection, has been awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE).

Provider of compliance, technical, and safety training, Develop Training, is embarking on a project that it says will help change the lives of communities in remote and impoverished areas of Nakuru in Kenya.

Former Chair of the Royal College of Surgeons, Dame Clare Marx, picked up the first spade-full of earth and dug in on 11 May as work began on a new multi-million-pound planned orthopaedic care centre named after her at Colchester Hospital.