In HEJ’s May issue we reported on the first ‘half’ of a lively two-and-ahalf- hour roundtable discussion jointly staged by IHEEM and building and engineering services association, the B&ES, in London.
Which sought both to determine ‘the vexed question of why so many hospital buildings services engineering projects seem to be fraught with problems’, with a particular focus on ‘poor commissioning’, and to identify some potential solutions. Here we report on the debate’s ‘second half’.
Giving his own view on the subject of guidance and how it is interpreted as the debate around compliance continued, Chris Johnston-Stuart, of the North Bristol NHS Trust said: “The HTMs are a set of guidance. Auditors will certainly look at them, but, by way of example if you’re not sharp enough, we had a relatively small scheme just coming to completion, and I was looking at a request for information and the responses. I found that in a room classed as a ‘treatment room’, there was re-circulating comfort cooling, which I know our convection control team would get panicky about because they don’t fully understand it. The HTM is a bit unhelpful here, in that it used to talk about ‘invasive procedures’, and now refers to ‘critical procedures’. Therein lies a problem for the M&E consultant, because he’s had this design proposed, and this was a refurbishment of an old listed building. We couldn’t alter the roof profile to get anything in.
Derogation issue
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