RECENT NEWS

The Government must ‘stop approaching the NHS and social care as a liability to be managed, and instead look at it as investment that delivers a good return’.

However, ‘throwing money at the system’ will not on its own be sufficient if the UK’s health and care system is to be fit for the 21st century’. So says the Lord Darzi Review of Health and Care: Interim Report, a new report from independent ‘think tank’, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), which considers the current ‘state and condition’ of the NHS, highlights those areas where the greatest improvements have been made in the past decade, and looks at where – for example in efforts to ‘join up’ health and social care, provide early access for cancer treatment to all, and afford sufficient levels of support to the mentally unwell – substantial improvements still need to be made

According to the CBRE, the global facilities management (FM) market will be worth USD 1 trillion by 2025 – ‘and that’s just that which is outsourced’.

Its prediction comes against the backdrop of the recent unveiling of ISO 41001, Facility management – Management systems – Requirements with guidance for use, ‘published to help FM teams achieve optimum efficiency’.

The Construction (Retention Deposit Schemes) Bill has just been published in time for its 2nd Reading on Friday (27 April 2018).

The Bill stipulates that, unless the monies are protected, any clause in a construction contract enabling the deduction of cash retentions will be invalid. Cash retentions will have to be safeguarded within a retention deposit scheme. The Bill will apply to the whole of the UK.

NHS Shared Business Services (NHS SBS) has launched a new Construction Consultancy Services Framework, which it says is expected to save the public sector some £16 million over the next four years.

Enabling NHS and wider public sector organisations to access services such as quantity surveying, civil engineering, and architecture, it provides a fully compliant route for public sector purchasing teams to access a comprehensive range of construction consultancy services.

Andrew Taylor, the former locksmith employed by London’s Guys and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, has been sentenced to six years imprisonment for defrauding the NHS of almost £600,000, in the first conviction secured by the NHS Counter Fraud Authority (NHSCFA) since its establishment as a new Special Health Authority last November.

Having heard that he abused his position to defraud his employer of £598,000, the jury unanimously found him guilty of Fraud by Abuse of Position, contrary to sections 1 and 4 of the Fraud Act 2006.

Mistley-based lift consultant, ilecs, has won a five-year contract from Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to provide its Authorising Engineer Service for Lifts, extending its existing 11-year partnership with the Trust.

Devon Medical Turnkey Solutions has recently refurbished a ‘dated’ X-ray room at York Hospital prior to the installation of new diagnostic equipment.

David Frise, who has combined the roles of head of sustainability at the Building Engineering Services Association (BESA) and CEO of construction fit-out body, FIS, for seven years, has been appointed as BESA’s new CEO.

NHS Property Services has raised ‘a record amount for reinvestment in the NHS’ by selling the vacant and surplus former St George’s Hospital site in Hornchurch, Essex for over £40 m to national housebuilder, Bellway.

Electrical and mechanical services provider, Quartz Electrical and Mechanical Services, installed a wireless Aid Call Touchsafe Pro nurse call system at Ramsay Health Care’s new Tees Valley Hospital, which opened this February.

Brand new primary care centres in Boyle, Tuam, Ballinrobe, Limerick, Claremorris (pictured), Ballymote, and Kilcock, have become the first to be completed as part of a ‘groundbreaking’ public-private partnership (PPP) to deliver 14 new primary care facilities across the Republic of Ireland.

MTX has successfully handed over a modular endoscopy decontamination facility to Colchester General Hospital.

Avensys UK says that it is ‘perfectly positioned’ to bring the benefits of the Apprenticeship Levy to the NHS, working with Trusts to train new and existing clinical and medical engineers and ‘address the lack of technical skills in the workplace’.

The Institute of Civil Engineers (ICE) and the British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM) have announced a joint initiative to explore the potential to develop a completely new form of contract explicitly for facilities management.

The new £35 million northern headquarters of the Royal College of Physicians will be known officially as The Spine, taking its name from a striking staircase on its north elevation.

Leading multi-disciplinary real estate consultancy, Virtus Consult, has been appointed by North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust to project manage the design and costing exercise for a new Data Centre at Hinchingbrooke Hospital.

It has been identified that the hospital’s main data centre lacks the capacity to meet the Trust’s future needs, with expansion necessary to allow the Trust to increase its use of technology in line with the its ambitious IT strategy.

Colin Dobbyne and the teams from Hexham General Hospital and the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre (KCMC) have received a prestigious award for Most Innovative Outreach Project at the recent Africa Healthcare Week 2018 Awards.

The award was given in recognition of the work done by the Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust to train surgeons in Tanzania in laparoscopic surgery via a televisual link developed and set up by Colin Dobbyne.

The Maggie’s Centre in Oldham has incorporated Allgood’s Holt ironmongery, including L- shaped lever handles, WC turns, coat hooks, doorstops, and toilet roll holders, as well as disabled toilet furniture, ‘to complete its thoughtful and hopeful design’

Allgood said: “Handcrafted from European oak, the Holt range seamlessly blends with the hardwood cross-laminated timber (CLT) building, and reduces the impact of neuropathy for the patients.”

The VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and the Metropolia University of Applied Sciences in Helsinki are collaborating with industrial partners to investigate opportunities to extend integration of visually attractive solar modules into architecture of building façades.

VTT Technical Research Centre says it has developed a mass production method – based on printing technologies to manufacture patterned organic solar modules – that 'enables freely customised solar modules to meet the architectural requirements of buildings, and to add value to their visual appearance in addition to energy production’.

The updated BREEAM UK New Construction scheme has ‘gone live’, following BREEAM’s most comprehensive industry consultation to date.

The revision of ‘the world-leading sustainability assessment method for real estate’ addresses ‘key industry challenges’ around the performance gap, as well as lifecycle assessment, ‘offering benefits for developers, investors, and users’. It also adopts fresh approaches to sustainable travel and ecology to reflect evolving best practice.