RECENT NEWS

A new ‘National Artificial Intelligence’ Lab will bring together the industry’s best academics, specialists, and technology companies ‘to work on some of the biggest challenges in health and care’, including earlier cancer detection, new dementia treatments and more personalised care, the Department of Health and Social Care has announced.

An innovative partnership with Engage to Change – a scheme in Wales which helps those aged 16-25 with learning disabilities and / or autism develop their work skills through paid work placements – is ‘helping to change the lives’ of such young people in North Wales, with the support of the NHS.

Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has confirmed a new £1.8 billion NHS ‘cash injection’ to help improve patient care.

More beds, new ‘cutting-edge equipment’, and additional wards, will be delivered at 20 hospitals across the country, the Prime Minister announced as he visited a Lincolnshire hospital today (5 August), with the 20 healthcare facilities set to share £850 million in new funding ‘to upgrade outdated facilities and equipment’.

The Door & Hardware Federation (DHF) has welcomed the Ministerial Statement to the House, given by the then Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, James Brokenshire, in which he updated members on building safety.

The new government team led by Boris Johnson has ‘an unprecedented opportunity to dramatically shift policy on the built environment and deliver higher standards of safety, sustainability and social justice’, the Building Engineering Services Association (BESA) claims.

A woman who has worked in operating theatres for over 30 years has launched a petition to protect thousands of healthcare workers exposed to what she says is ‘a toxic smoke plume’ produced during surgery, and is being backed by the Association for Perioperative Practice (AfPP), the UK’s leading membership organisation for perioperative practitioners.

Medical Architecture has secured planning consent for a new Fracture Clinic at the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow, Essex, which will enable the hospital’s orthopaedic department to expand the range of services provided locally.

John Norfolk has taken over as President of the Building Engineering Services Association (BESA) for 2019/20 from Tim Hopkinson of E Poppleton & Son, who served for two years.

The Government should spend £8 billion immediately ‘to restore the quality of and access to adult social care in England to acceptable levels’, and then introduce free personal care, funded through general taxation, over a five-year period, says a House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee report, 'Social care funding: time to end a national scandal', published on 4 July.

The Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust (RD&E) is reportedly set to reduce its annual energy costs by £800,000 a year, following a £7 million investment in sustainable energy measures.

The project, delivered by Centrica Business Solutions, will see new energy technology installed at five sites across Exeter, helping the Trust cut its energy costs by 17 per cent. Design and construction, set for completion by late April 2020, includes the installation of a 1.5 MW CHP unit at Wonford Hospital, and roof-mounted solar panels at Wonford and Heavitree Hospitals and the Mardon Neuro-Rehabilitation Centre.

Ideal Standard International, the bathroom solutions manufacturer, has seen its new £1 million Clerkenwell showroom opened with ‘a day dedicated to insight and design inspiration’.

Following the second anniversary of Grenfell Tower fire in West London in which 72 people died and 70 were injured, The Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) has published a revised and updated version of its 'Guide E: Fire Safety Engineering'.

Canon Medical Systems UK and specialist, independent ultrasound service provider, Imagex Medical, say a new multi-vendor service partnership they have launched in the UK will provide cost, operational, and administrative benefits to both NHS and independent hospitals by streamlining productivity in the way that maintenance and repairs are undertaken on frontline diagnostic ultrasound imaging systems.

Minister of State for Health, Stephen Hammond, has announced that new guidance on NHS property ownership will allow NHS Trusts and Foundation Trusts to apply for the transfer of ownership of properties on their estate.

A recently published Department of Health & Social Care document, 'Guidance for NHS Trusts and Foundation Trusts on requesting transfers of estate in the ownership of NHS property companies', explains that the change applies where property on a Trust’s estate belongs to NHS Property Services (NHSPS) and Community Health Partnerships (CHP).

NHS Camden Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) has launched a public consultation – open until 16 September – on what they dub ‘exciting proposals’ to move Moorfields Eye Hospital from its current City Road site in London to an advanced new-build eye care and research centre in St Pancras in central London.

The consultation, led by NHS Camden Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) on behalf of all the CCGs, together with NHS England Specialised Commissioning, invites the public to have their say on ‘Oriel’ – the proposal to build a new facility at St Pancras Hospital that would bring together ‘excellent eye care, ground-breaking research, and world-leading education in ophthalmology’ on one site. The proposal is the result of a partnership between Moorfields Eye Hospital, the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, and Moorfields Eye Charity, which would all be housed in the new facility. The Moorfields’ City Road site was built over a century ago.

The Door & Hardware Federation (DHF) has launched a Best Practice Guide entitled ‘How to obtain Key Copy Protection: security and protection advice regarding copying of keys’, which it says offers information on minimising the risk of a security breach by preventing the unauthorised copying of keys.

The Wates Group is set to expand its facilities management offering with the launch of Wates Facilities Management (‘Wates FM’) – a new business with expanded nationwide capabilities.

Formerly operating as Wates Smartspace FM, Wates FM will build on the company’s existing nationwide portfolio of ‘total facilities management services’ across environments including banking, retail, and healthcare, and will seek opportunities to provide FM support to both private and public sector customers.

International consultancy and construction company, Mace, says its latest analysis suggests the NHS could be boosted 'by the equivalent of 13,500 new nurses' if there was a ‘construction revolution’ that could enhance productivity in the UK’s hospitals.

A 31-year-old electrical engineer, Neo Hutiri, has won the Royal Academy of Engineering’s 2019 Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation – the first South African to win the prestigious prize – for he and his team’s Pelebox smart locker system designed to dispense medicine to patients with chronic conditions.

Thousands of staff are giving safer, more efficient care to patients at 19 hospital sites in North East Scotland, says Ascom UK, thanks to the deployment of its mobile handsets and messaging software, which have enabled medical personnel to stop using ‘old-fashioned’ pagers for all but emergency communication.