RECENT NEWS

A new book by Professor C Alan Short, Professor of Architecture at the University of Cambridge, ‘challenges the modern practice of sealing up and mechanically cooling public scaled buildings in whichever climate and environment they are located’, with a significant focus on the healthcare estate.

Medical product supplier, Vernacare, has appointed electrical and mechanical contractor, JD McGeown, as its technical services partner for Northern Ireland.

Demand for more streamlined temperature monitoring to prevent Legionnaires’ disease featured highly at last year’s Healthcare Estates exhibition, says temperature measurement specialist, TM Electronics, which has developed a solution.

Medical Air Technology (MAT) has come to the end of a major project at Barnet Hospital, comprising the complete refurbishment of the healthcare facility’s five main operating theatres, and the refurbishment and remodelling of a day surgery unit.

Health and Safety Executive’s guidelines HSG274 part 2 state that: “The use and fitting of TMVs should be informed by a comparative risk assessment of scalding risk versus the risk of infection from legionella.”

As part of its ‘strategy for growth and customer development’, Veolia has acquired energy services company and Energy Performance Contract (EPC) specialist, Cynergin.

Silentflor PUR from Polyflor is a new collection of heavy commercial sheet vinyl flooring with acoustic properties, available in a variety of high design wood, concrete, and abstract effects.

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.