The UK government a number of times last year reiterated its commitment to build 40 new hospitals by 2030, for example with a dedicated mention in the 2022 Queen’s Speech in May. While there has been some criticism over the pace, there are clear signs that progress is being made. This confirmation of commitment comes

The Energy Trilemma – an affordable, sustainable, and secure power supply – is a pressing global issue, and in the UK, this is nowhere more urgent than in the NHS. Budget constraints are at their tightest, energy prices are at their highest, and the sector has some of the most stringent targets for reaching Net

In the past two years, many manufacturing companies have reported difficulties obtaining key components due to a worldwide production slowdown during the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by surging demand. They have also faced a volatile energy market and rising utility costs, exacerbated by the war in the Ukraine, and challenges in recruiting staff. HEJ’s editor, Jonathan

The war in Ukraine, and the surging cost of living crisis, have turned the UK’s focus onto cutting energy bills and building running costs. The government’s British energy security strategy set a series of long-term goals for increasing renewable and nuclear energy, but in the shorter term we must focus on cutting demand. To be

How can increased capacity at NHS car parks offer solutions, and not problems? Hospital car parking is a complex and multi-faceted issue. Approaches to modernise parking solutions must take into account the needs of the future, and develop appropriate and efficient ways to control throughput and overflow. Paul Eaton, Marketing and Business Development, at Berry

With input from the Trust’s associate director of Engineering, Louise Clark, Nigel Otter, Marketing manager EMEA at IDEXX, discusses Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust’s successful use of two of the company’s rapid microbiology systems to test for, and identify, Legionella and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, ‘in-house’, in the water systems of its two largest London

Associate director at AA Projects, Sarah Butler, discusses a new resource, ‘Building for Health: The role of Estates in reducing health inequalities’, created by NHS England, and developed through desk-based research and engagement with a range of stakeholders. Its principal aim is to demonstrate how, as an anchor organisation, the NHS can use and manage

PPL Training, one of the UK’s leading providers of Safe Systems of Work and technical compliance training – including for healthcare estates management and healthcare engineering personnel – has recently expanded its already wide-ranging training offer with a number of new fire safety training courses. On a recent visit to the company’s impressive York facilities,

The pace of scientific research in the global development of new cancer treatments is astonishing, with precision medicines dramatically improving survivability rates; these have doubled since 1970. Immuno-oncology therapies empower the immune system to recognise and react to tumour cells, and biomarkerguided therapies target the mutation in tumour cells at a molecular level, in effect

Speaking in the opening ‘Workforce’-themed keynote at last October’s Healthcare Estates 2022 conference, Sir David Behan, Chair of Health Education England, and Nick Hulme, Chief Executive at East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust, gave their standpoints on some of the key workforce challenges facing both the healthcare engineering and estate management sector, and

The NHS has a legacy of ageing properties, many of which have ventilation systems where it is not possible to gain access for effective cleaning or mandatory annual safety inspection and testing of fire dampers. This lack of access is not a new issue, and needs to be afforded much higher priority on risk registers,

The COVID pandemic has raised awareness that hygiene is critical, and has highlighted the risk of infection spread when touch surface cleanliness is overlooked. However, manual cleaning is not always consistent, and surfaces assumed to be safe may actually be contaminated. It is well documented that only 5 per cent of people wash their hands

Within the Estates Department at the Royal Victoria Infirmary (RVI) in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, a major trauma centre in north-east England, the COVID pandemic placed significant pressure on engineering services, highlighting the need to maintain and improve the resilience and reliability of all key M&E plant. Now, in 2022, the new medical gas plant, developed by SHJ

A Net Zero and Sustainability keynote session on the second day of Healthcare Estates 2022 included a chastening look at the energy generation challenge facing the UK in the short-to-medium term, by Dame Sue Ion, a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. One of her key messages was a need for a considerable stepping

In an interesting session opening the second day of Healthcare Estates 2022, four scientists and academics discussed hospital ventilation – including some of the key learnings for hospital engineers in the wake of COVID-19. They focused especially on improving infection resilience in the hospital environment, and tackling poorly ventilated spaces. HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie, reports