RECENT NEWS

Sir Keir Starmer, Shadow Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, visited Brandon Medical in Morley, West Yorkshire on 28 April, where he discussed with joint MD, Graeme Hall, Labour’s programme for Britain’s exit from the EU and Brexit’s impact on businesses.

Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust has entered an Energy Performance Contract with Veolia-Cynergin under which the latter will deliver a wide range of measures designed to lower carbon emissions and energy costs at Worcestershire Royal Hospital, Alexandra Hospital, and Kidderminster Hospital.

BOC Healthcare says its complete Gas Facilities Management (GFM) design consultancy service will ensure that each hospital customer ‘receives the right system for its requirements, delivered by a provider it can trust’

The Crittall Group’s acquisition in midApril of Fendor, the north-east-based manufacturer of windows, doors, façades, and atria for acute and mental healthcare, custodial, and petrochemical applications, will bring significant benefits in broadening the markets for both companies’ products – geographically and sectorally, Stuart Judge, managing director of both the Crittall Group, and the resulting new windows and doors business, Crittall Fendor, has told HEJ.

There’s a potential vandal in each of us, especially when it comes to using public washrooms and toilets.

BSI, the business standards company, has revised the BS 8214 Code of practice for fire door assemblies, with the updated standard giving recommendations for the specification, installation, and maintenance, of timber-based fire doors.

Orders for a new Tomorrow’s Engineers careers booklet, From idea to career, which explores 12 areas of engineering, reached over 32,000 in the first fortnight following publication on 15 March 2017.

Competent or Authorised Persons working in ventilation can now take advantage of two new refresher training courses from Eastwood Park designed to update participants with the latest best practice.

A new supplement to HTM 0401, published last month, and titled Performance specification D 08: thermostatic mixing valves (healthcare premises), provides an update to the wellknown D 08 specification for thermostatic mixing valves, which was published in 1997.

Ensuring that patients get the highest quality care is becoming difficult for ‘overstretched nurses and carers’, argues Innova Care Concepts, whose new Interlude Newcare V3 hospital bed features ‘multiple easy-to-use functions to ease the busy schedules of healthcare professionals’.

Vernacare’s new Compact disposal unit is said to provide ‘quick, safe, and effective disposal’ of Vernacare singleuse containers and patient waste at the point of care.

PKL, a leading UK modular kitchen infrastructure provider, is taking on the distribution of the Garbage Guzzler, ‘a revolutionary waste digester that allows any hospital to reduce its costs and waste disposal needs’.

LocationManager, an online service that gives NHS Trusts and their suppliers ‘a simple, cost-effective, and efficient way to manage and access information about all locations across the NHS’, has been launched by GS1 UK to help drive adoption of GS1 standards for the third element of the DH-funded Scan4Safety programme, ‘places’

Asckey Data Services has signed an agreement with BESA (the Building Engineering Services Association) to become the first Approved Provider of the SFG20 planned and preventative maintenance standard.

Cancer patients at Tameside Hospital are benefiting from a major redevelopment of their local Macmillan Unit, with arts consultancy, Willis Newson, having brought in artist, Chris Tipping, to create a welcoming, healing environment, with integrated artworks providing a connection with the beautiful local Tameside landscapes.

The Christie’s new Proton Beam Therapy Centre in Manchester, due to treat its first patients next summer as the UK’s first NHS high-energy proton beam facility (see also pages 45-49), will be equipped with Varian’s ProBeam proton therapy system.

Medical and nursing staff in Cumberland Infirmary’s Accident and Emergency departments are using a time-saving, hygienic new system of organising and disposing of medical items when assessing and treating patients.

Harland Simon says East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust (EKHUFT) is ‘experiencing multiple cost and efficiency improvements’ using its RFiD Discovery system to track over 5,000 medical devices, including 1,000 beds.

Millions of feminine hygiene products, nappies, and other hygiene waste currently sent to landfill by hospitals, GPs’ surgeries, care homes, and other healthcare organisations, can now be recycled to produce clean energy, according to PHS Group.

Brandon Medical has begun the transition to adopt the newly established ‘Scan4Safety’ initiative, spearheaded by the Department of Health.