RECENT NEWS

The UK Green Building Council (UKGBC) has delivered a framework for the UK construction and property industry ‘to transition’ new and existing buildings to becoming net zero carbon by 2050, to meet the ambitions of the Paris Climate Agreement.

Bender UK has signed an exclusive distributor agreement with Merivaara of Finland to supply operating tables to hospitals and healthcare facilities in the UK and the Republic Ireland.

Demonstrating that it is about ‘more than modular and offsite construction’, MTX has completed a refurbishment, remodelling, and extension, of the existing Resuscitation Department at Plymouth’s Derriford Hospital, creating a new ‘resus’ unit incorporating additional beds and state-of the art equipment, while adjacent clinical activity continued uninterrupted.

A ‘topping out’ ceremony has recently taken place to mark the structural completion of the new health centre in Dulwich.

The Mayor of Southwark, Cllr Catherine Rose, and Dulwich and West Norwood MP, Helen Hayes, joined the CCG’s director of Finance, Malcolm Hines, to ‘top out’ the new building. Each said a few words, emphasising how the development has been shaped by local people, and highlighting the hub’s central role in delivering ‘more joined-up and accessible’ health and wellbeing services in Dulwich and south Southwark.

Sir Andrew Dilnot has been appointed chair of the Oversight Board for the Health Foundation’s new Health and Social Care Sustainability Research Centre (SRC).

The SRC will fund and undertake research on the long-term demand and cost trends affecting health and social care in the UK, with the aim of improving the evidence base to inform policy. Working with a network of funded academic partners, it will produce robust research on the drivers of sustainability in health and social care and long-term projections of health needs, funding, and workforce.

A ‘ground-breaking’ new Innovation Centre aimed at the catering, cleaning, and FM sectors is to open its doors for business on 1 May in Peterborough.

A ‘collaboration’ between Oxford company, GreenTeck Global, ‘an innovator in alternative green technologies’, and commercial kitchen experts, CK Direct, the Centre is based at CK Direct’s factory and showroom just a mile off the A1 (M), and is unusual, Greenteck says, in featuring a fully fitted, fully operational commercial kitchen as its centrepiece, all under one bespoke, stainless steel roof, also fabricated ‘from scratch’ on the premises.

As part of a new centrally controlled vehicle security system, The North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) has recently updated the security of its premises at its Lancashire regional headquarters near Broughton in Preston using Nortech’s stainless steel bollards housing Nedap ANPR cameras.

The importance of good hand hygiene, the growing threat of antibiotic resistance, and the need to ‘reduce reservoirs of infection’ in the healthcare environment, are key points in a new, ‘highly informative and thought-provoking’ CPD presentation from specialist in temperature control for water systems, Horne Engineering.

Europe is seeing rapid growth in the market for ‘Smart Connected HVAC’ – heating, cooling or air conditioning systems connected to a network – usually the internet – enabling their performance to be monitored and analysed, research from consultancy, test, instruments and research organisation, BSRIA, reveals.

VINCI Construction UK has started work on a new 14,728 m2 specialist hospital facility in Birmingham, which will provide acute care to private patients in the region, as well as providing extra capacity and access to specialist facilities for NHS patients.

Imperial College London has opened its biggest new academic building in a generation, describing the £167 m Molecular Sciences Research Hub on the College’s White City Campus as ‘the UK’s most significant scientific development since the Francis Crick Institute, and the largest investment in a university building in 21st century London’.

A new playroom for children at West Middlesex University Hospital, funded with the support of the ‘local community to hospital’ charity CW+’s Sun and Stars Appeal, was officially opened on 10 April by the Mayor of Hounslow, Councillor Samia Chaudhary.

Young patients, their families, and staff, were central to the design process, with specialist indoor play manufacturer, Tigerplay – who CW+ commissioned for the project. There was a particular focus on traditional play such as cars, trucks, a playhouse, and kitchen toys.

The Sustainable Development Unit (SDU) has worked in collaboration with a Cross System Group, comprising key representatives of organisations across the health and care sector, to establish what it describes as ‘significant sustainability commitments’ on behalf of 10 Arm’s Length Bodies (ALBs).

BSI, the business improvement company, has significantly revised the 2001 edition of the original British Standard for fire safety engineering, BS 7974, and has published a new version entitled BS 7974:2019 - Application of fire safety engineering principles to the design of buildings.

Medical Air Technology (MAT) has completed another successful theatre refurbishment, this time at the Countess of Chester Hospital. This 600-bed large district general hospital, operated by the Countess of Chester NHS Foundation Trust, serves patients from Western Cheshire, Ellesmere Port, Neston and North Wales.

Under Secretary of State at the Department of Health and Social Care, Baroness Nicola Blackwood, has announced up to £56 million in funding ‘for research into the biggest challenges facing public health’.

A leading lift and escalator expert, Eur Ing Dave Cooper, managing director of UK-based independent lift, escalator, and vertical transport consultant, LECS (UK), will give a free presentation focusing on ‘the lift and escalator for 2019’ in Central London on 4 April, starting at 12.30pm.

Control of UK-headquartered international support services, construction, and equipment services company, Interserve, which provides a range of construction and facilities management services to the healthcare sector, has moved to a new company after administrators were appointed.

Specialist contractor, Medical Air Technology (MAT), has upgraded Theatre 2 at Fairfield Independent Hospital in St Helens, Merseyside, one of the few remaining independent charitable hospitals in the country, to ultraclean with the addition of one of its ECO-flow ultraclean ventilation (UCV) system.

MAT was appointed after the hospital undertook a formal tender process and the board approved its business case, which the company says ‘demonstrated a clear understanding of the requirements and project drivers, supported by straightforward, concise project proposals that gave cost certainty and evidence of flexibility of installation to meet surgical demands’. In addition to the theatre refit, MAT carried out hydrogen peroxide disinfection of both theatre suites and the surrounding department. The installation was completed in just 18 working days over the Christmas and New Year period to ensure a prompt handover.

Cowan Architects has announced that it has incorporated Alexander Sedgley Architects of Greenwich into its East Grinstead and London Bridge practice, with immediate effect.