RECENT NEWS

Cagni Williams Architects has launched a sister practice, Cagni Williams Energy, to focus on project decarbonisation, and particularly decarbonising dense urban areas.

Amanda Pritchard, who has been CEO of NHS England since August 2021, and Chief Operating Officer since 2019 – ‘leading the NHS through the most challenging period in its 76-year history’ – has notified the NHS England Board of her decision to stand down as NHS England CEO at the end of this financial year.

Children and their families in Kent are taking part in the county’s first clinical artificial intelligence pilot, ‘to enhance patient care and reduce the administrative burden on clinicians and social workers’.

Multidisciplinary consultancy, Pick Everard, has expanded its Health & Safety (H&S) team, welcoming two senior new personnel as it strengthens its position as one of the largest H&S teams within a UK consultancy.

Sodexo Health & Care has joined forces with Culinary Medicine UK, a non-profit organisation, to further enhance patient care with a dedicated online platform that it says offers NHS staff ‘access to valuable nutrition education modules’.

NHS Shared Business Services (NHS SBS) has launched a new framework agreement, Building Safety and Fire Compliance, ‘to address the need for robust fire safety systems in healthcare settings’.

UK medtech business, Presymptom Health, has secured £200,000 in additional grant funding to speed-up its AI-driven infection detection technology, cutting test times to just 40-60 minutes.

Rockwool, the global non-combustible insulation manufacturer, has taken the next step towards building a second UK production facility, on the Peddimore site, near Minworth, north-east of Birmingham.

Graham-BAM Healthcare Partnership (GBHP) has been awarded the contract to deliver a new ‘state-of-the-art’ Children’s Hospital at the Royal Victoria Hospital site in Belfast, following confirmation from Health Minister, Mike Nesbitt, that the project has received formal approval, with construction set to begin imminently.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has issued new guidance to help manufacturers meet UK medical devices regulations and ensure that digital mental health technologies are ‘effective, reliable, and acceptably safe.’

Patients are now benefiting from the creation of a new £23 million Lincoln Community Diagnostic Centre (CDC), handed over recently by hospital construction and modular healthcare building specialist, MTX Contracts.

Over two-thirds (68%) of UK healthcare leaders are revising their strategic plans every three months or more frequently, driven by mounting global economic pressures and cybersecurity threats, according to research by the Association for Project Management (APM) – the chartered membership organisation for the project management profession.

Kier has been appointed to deliver a new £40.7 m Health Building on behalf of the University of Salford, with the project set to support the delivery of local health and wellbeing services.

Working together, Wantage Town Council, Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust and the local NHS, Oxfordshire County Council, and Vale of White Horse District Council, have agreed an investment programme that will see nearly £1 m being used to refurbish Wantage Community Hospital’s ground floor so that it can accommodate more clinic-based services across physical healthcare and mental health.

The James Paget University Hospital in Gorleston-on-Sea near Great Yarmouth has had plans approved to support the movement of its Orthopaedic Outpatient services to a new location on the existing hospital site, to facilitate the development of an improved Same Day Emergency Care service.

A new report from the NHS Confederation – the membership organisation that ‘brings together, supports, and speaks for, the whole healthcare system in England, Wales and Northern Ireland’, sets out how the NHS capital regime can be improved ‘to deliver on the government’s missions for health and economic growth’.

More innovative healthcare technologies could soon be adopted by the NHS under reforms proposed by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).

On 27 March the Healthcare Infection Society (HIS) will facilitate a workshop, sponsored by Sidara, and held at the latter's central London headquarters, which will bring together experts from across the construction and infection prevention professions to address mitigating infection risks in hospital design and construction.

The New Hospital Programme has confirmed that Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust will be able to continue to detailed design and planning for its St Mary’s Hospital redevelopment in Paddington.

A new analysis from Siemens Financial Services (SFS) – titled ‘Healthcare spending: addressing the big issue?’, assesses ‘the widening gap between healthcare resources and healthcare costs’, and – as the business puts it – ‘the role of financing in closing this rift’.