RECENT NEWS

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.

Rigel Medical has supplied a global charity that delivers healthcare services worldwide on board the world’s largest private hospital ship with a variety of biomedical test equipment, including a Multi-Flow Infusion analyser, electrical safety analysers, patient simulators, an electrosurgical analyser, and ventilation analysers.

BOC Healthcare says it offers hospitals and other care facilities ‘a total turnkey solution to the complex issue of creating safer, more secure medical gas cylinder storage’.

A ‘thinking tap’ like its Ultra is especially useful for hospitals, medical practices, and industry, says Conti + UK

A hybrid fan coil unit developed by Airedale International Air Conditioning from a concept by Arup associate director, Roger Olsen (pictured), is claimed to address ‘the biggest complaints in comfort cooling’, including energy efficiency, draughts and dead spots, space claim of secondary ductwork, unit footprint, cluttered ceiling void services, and ‘restrictive access for maintenance and installation’.

A new PVDF insulated aluminium rainscreen with integral high-performance composite windows, together with a freestanding structure, have created a ‘garden’ in front of the building to successfully transform the Queen’s Façade on Upper Maudlin Street Bristol at Bristol Royal Infirmary which, from the architect’s perspective, creates ‘interstitial public spaces that suggest a new relationship between the hospital and its urban context’.

C-TEC, which claims to be UK’s largest independent manufacturer of quality life safety electronic equipment.

Slamming doors, damage to walls and furniture, and trapped fingers, could be in the past with the introduction of GEZE’s ActiveStop – a new control mechanism for internal swing doors

Schneider Electric, the global energy management specialist, has opened a new Customer Experience Centre in Telford to showcase its ‘market-leading, digitised, and connected technology, systems, and equipment