RECENT NEWS

Hospitals and clinics across London’s Harley Street Medical Area (HSMA) are collaborating with the NHS to meet the continued need for specialist treatments being put under pressure while the fight against the COVID-19 virus continues.

Software development ‘market-leader’, GlobalView Systems, has jointly developed with IHEEM (the Institute of Healthcare Engineering and Estate Management) what the company dubs ‘innovative new software’ to help hospitals anywhere in the world manage the increasing need for oxygen as they battle with the COVID-19 emergency.

'Britain’s leading engineering brains' at Enginuity, (formerly Semta), an employer-led manufacturing and engineering skills body, with the support of the The Prince’s Trust, are 'harnessing the power of gaming' to identify talent via a non-academic route that the proponents say can ‘power the nation’s economic recovery when the lockdown is lifted’.

Supplier of turnkey operating theatre and power solutions, Bender UK, has appointed Ricky Barker – who been with the company for over 15 years – as the new head of its Hospital Business Unit.

During his time with the Cumbria-headquartered firm, he has worked in a variety of healthcare engineering roles, including in commissioning and project management, and latterly as Technical Service leader. Bender UK says he has supported the steady growth and expansion of its Hospital Business Unit, for instance leading the Service Department, which the company says ‘has consistently gained more contracted work by offering complete service solutions for NHS and private medical customers, incorporating the maintenance of complementary third-party systems such as uninterruptible power supplies’.

Mitie, the FM and professional services company, is providing cleaning, catering, portering, security, and waste management services for NHS Wales’ new Ysbyty Calon y Ddraig (Dragon’s Heart Hospital) in Cardiff.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the resulting increase in demand for its nurse call systems, healthcare communications and bedhead services specialist, Static Systems Group (SSG), has boosted production capacity at its manufacturing base near Wolverhampton, and invested in the rapid development of an off-the-shelf ‘wired’ nurse call solution.

ESGLI, the ESCMID (European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases) Study Group for Legionella Infections, has recently published guidance designed to help personnel such as healthcare engineers and healthcare estates managers keep water systems safe during the current COVID-19 outbreak.

Interserve Group, the international support services, construction, and equipment group, has been commissioned by the Government to provide facilities management services to the NHS Nightingale North West Hospital in Manchester that will be treating COVID-19 patients when it opens shortly.

NG Bailey is continuing to play its part supporting national efforts to combat the COVID-19 epidemic as part of the team that has transformed Harrogate Convention Centre into an NHS Nightingale hospital to serve Yorkshire and Humberside.

Civil and structural engineering firm, Sutcliffe, has announced an 11% increase in profit for its last financial year (September 2018-September 2019), compared with the same period in the previous 12 months, which it says puts it ‘in a very strong position as the world deals with the current COVID-19 crisis’.

The professional team delivering the emergency Nightingale Hospital at Harrogate Hospital has been announced.

The new ‘circa-500-bed’ facility, part of the Government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, will see the Harrogate Convention Centre in North Yorkshire converted to accommodate level three critical care beds in the Centre’s halls for the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.

With the spread of COVID-19 increasing across the UK, engineers and estates professionals in the NHS are now undertaking their vital role in a rapidly changing and increasingly demanding environment.

IHEEM (the Institute of Healthcare Engineering and Estate Management) says that, having received a number of calls and emails from companies and individuals asking how they can offer their services, skills, and knowledge to help the NHS, it has contacted the Estates & Facilities team at NHS England / NHS Improvement to establish how the Institute can help.

The 4 Medical IT Alliance has appointed Fulbourn Medical as the official supplier of its integrated operating room and video imaging, workflow management, and surgical display systems to hospitals in the UK and Ireland.

The partnership unites the newly formed Alliance – ‘made up of an elite group of leading medical technology manufacturers with a focus on disruptive innovation’ – with ‘an established and respected provider of operating room solutions’. The 4 Medical IT Alliance and Fulbourn Medical say hospitals will now benefit from ‘a much improved workflow system, which is affordable and sustainable, to improve patient care and operational safety and drive efficiencies’.

London’s ExCeL Centre will be used as an NHS ‘field hospital’ within days, with the capacity to hold up to 4,000 patients with the coronavirus, the Department of Health & Social Care has announced.

The Specialist Engineering Contractors’ (SEC) Group – representing the largest value sector in UK construction – has expressed ‘major concerns’ over the impact of COVID-19 on SMEs, which it says comprise 99% of firms in the construction industry.

These, it explains, relate to ‘sharp practices’, disruption to repair and maintenance contracts (which represent more than half of construction industry output), and ‘the weak balance sheets of the large tier 1 contractors, with implications for payment security along the supply chain’.

Unilabs, a European diagnostic services provider, has set up a ‘drive-through’ facility in Porto in Portgual to collect samples from suspected Covid-19 patients, believed to be among the first of its kind in Europe.

“The opening of this temporary drive-through facility allows us to serve the urgent needs of our community, and takes the pressure off hospitals struggling with the flood of patients requiring sample collection and analysis,” said Luis Menezes, CEO of Unilabs Portugal. “The key benefit is safety.”

Measures announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak (pictured), in the 2020 Budget on 12 March included over £6 billion in new funding to support the NHS, including to create 50 million more GP surgery appointments, to ensure that there are 50,000 more nurses, and to ‘fund wider commitments’ on hospital car parking and support for people with learning disabilities and autism.

A ‘topping out' ceremony has taken place at the new £98 m Heatherwood Hospital, which will provide NHS services to patients in Berkshire and beyond.

Work on the main structure of the hospital, in Ascot, which has been designed by architects, BDP, and is being built by Kier for Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust, is complete less than a year after work began. The hospital will provide six operating theatres, outpatient services, and up-to-date diagnostics ‘in a superb new building set into woodland’.

SHJ Medical Gas Specialists has appointed James Forgan as its Service manager.

Plans to build a ‘world-leading’ eye care and research centre in central London have been agreed at a special decision making meeting on 12 February.