RECENT NEWS

A private dinner club for the building services and built environment, originally formed in 1947 by engineers to address mainly technical topics around air movement, but which has since developed a broader view of potential subjects within building engineering services, is seeking to establish a two year GSCE programme dedicated to the built environment at a Surrey girls’ secondary school.

With many NHS hospitals under continuing bed pressure, Cloud Offsite Construction, working with medical engineering specialist, Howorth Air Technology, says it can deliver a new theatre, with a structural and external envelope design life of 60 years, in as little as 22 weeks, a new ward in 12, or a new office or link corridor in four.

Eastwood Park’s new training calendar for April 2017-March 2018, just published, details its specialist healthcare engineering and estates and facilities management courses, as well as ‘unique’ and new development training for estates teams.

Haigh says it is ‘embarking on a new era’ following the launch of two new machines for pulp bedpan and human waste disposal.

Altro has unveiled what it describes as ‘a bold new look’ to support its ‘exciting vision of the future’.

Designer and manufacturer of doorsets and associated door hardware, Safehinge, has acquired Primera Life, which produces anti-barricade locksets and other specialist door hardware widely used in mental healthcare environments.

UK-based engineering design consultancy, Troup Bywaters + Anders (TB+A), has become only the third construction industry organisation globally to be awarded the Platinum standard by Investors in People (IiP).

London’s recently opened Francis Crick Institute research facility (see also pages 51-56) incorporates Allgood’s Contego antimicrobial ironmongery in its laboratory and visitor areas.

Leeds-based Brandon Medical has once again teamed up with community interest company, Medical Aid International, which is helping to set up a new children’s surgical unit in the district of Mbarara in Uganda.

UK designer and manufacturer of protection products, Intastop, is now the exclusive UK supplier of wall, corner, door protection, and handrail products designed for healthcare use from USbased global manufacturer, Inpro.

Wandsworth Healthcare is providing Spire Healthcare with one of its ‘advanced’ IP nurse call systems – IPiN Evolution, for the private hospital group’s new hospital in West Didsbury, South Manchester, which opened last month.

The Countess of Chester Hospital in Chester is to be the UK’s first hospital to trial new tracking technology to manage its beds, patients, staff, and equipment more efficiently, with the installation of over 4,000 infra-red sensors from US supplier, TeleTracking Technologies, above hospital beds and doorways.

With the risk that earth (grounding) leakages of electrical currents in both new and older electrical devices could cause injury, or even the death of those working close to the the defective equipment, Finnish company, PPO-Elektroniikka, says its MEV Isolation Monitoring System enables healthcare facilities to ‘constantly, safely, and securely’ monitor their electrical systems.

Conlon Construction has begun a 65-week project to build a new £40 m, two-storey private hospital in Hatfield, Hertfordshire.

Sika has launched a Major Projects Team, bringing together expertise from across its waterproofing, concrete, sealing and bonding, flooring, refurbishment, and roofing businesses ‘to offer a holistic approach to supporting a project, from design through to completion’.

A £130 m investment to ‘kick-start’ the upgrade of radiotherapy equipment (which is used to treat around 4 in 10 of all NHS cancer patients), and to ‘transform cancer treatment’ across England, will see older ‘linac’ radiotherapy equipment used by hospitals countrywide upgraded or replaced over the next two years.

The KIMS Hospital near Maidstone, an existing Brandon Medical customer, has again chosen the company to provide state-of-the-art medical equipment to further enhance its operating theatres.

As part of an ongoing relationship with Spire Healthcare, Medical Air Technology (MAT) has recently refurbished and upgraded an existing operating theatre at the Spire Murrayfield Hospital in Edinburgh.

BOC Healthcare says its ‘total turnkey gas facilities management solution’ ensures that hospital liquid oxygen supply systems are always installed correctly, are fully compliant, and ‘operate with optimum efficiency’.

A partnership between Essentia Trading Ltd – the commercial arm of Essentia, Mott MacDonald, and professional services firm, EY, has seen a collaborative agreement signed to support the development of emerging healthcare requirements in Nanjing, the capital of China’s eastern Jiangsu province.