In the UK, the NHS produces 20 million tonnes of carbon dioxide every year, and the healthcare sector’s sizeable carbon footprint is not a problem specific to the UK. In the USA, for example, the healthcare sector is responsible for 8.5% of the country’s total carbon emissions. Concerningly, the sector’s carbon emissions increased by 6%

Ensuring the safety and efficiency of water systems in healthcare estates is critical to protecting patient health and maintaining a secure environment. Hospitals, GP practices, and care homes, rely on large, complex water systems that must be carefully managed to prevent contamination and reduce risks such as Legionella outbreaks. Alongside its critical role in hospital

The largest health research organisation in Canada had one chance to get it right — ‘it’ being building two mini-operating rooms (ORs) in a live suite of 20 sterile ORs. “We’re talking about a city of individuals that are having different surgeries in 16 to 18 ORs at any one time,” said Christopher Rizzo, Executive

A system that prevents electrical accidents in hospitals and other healthcare facilities is vital to electrical safety, protecting patients, personnel, and medical equipment, preventing electrical fires and burns, and ensuring that unnecessary downtime is avoided and the service life of surgical equipment is extended. It is essential, in our view, to stimulate discussion about vital

Always a great opportunity to catch up with news, industry developments, and friends from across the sector, the 2024 Healthcare Estates IHEEM Awards dinner began with pre-dinner drinks in the Whitworth Room at Manchester’s distinctive and stylish Kimpton Clocktower Hotel. While there, guests had the opportunity to meet and reminisce with Kevin Keegan OBE, one

Nigel Keery, an IHEEM Council Member who will be well-known to many in healthcare EFM and engineering circles for his gregarious personality, enthusiasm, humour, and open, friendly manner, made clear to me during an interesting 45-minute ‘Teams’ chat that he has loved working in healthcare engineering, and that — given his time again, he would

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, in March 2020, the UCL’s Bartlett Real Estate Institute (The Bartlett Real Estate Institute 2020)1 considered the impact of COVID on the built environment. Its resulting report, ‘How COVID-19 will impact residential development’ concluded: ‘This pandemic will change people, the economy, and society, in ways we can’t yet

The Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS) was introduced in England in 2019 to improve access to general practice, and allowed Primary Care Networks (PCNs) to claim reimbursement for the salaries of 17 new roles within the multidisciplinary team – such as paramedics, pharmacists, physicians, and associates etc. The intention of the scheme was to relieve

Staff across the NHS, including the healthcare estates and facilities and healthcare engineering personnel who maintain and look after healthcare facilities, are increasingly being asked to improve efficiencies while at the same time cutting costs – requests that can seem at odds with each other. This is is all at a time when compliance challenges

While ventilation is used in many areas of a hospital to provide a safe and comfortable environment for patients, staff, and visitors, some clinical areas – such as operating theatres, have additional requirements. We are fortunate that guidance is available from NHS England and NHS Improvement on specialist ventilation for healthcare premises in the form

As numerous research and academic studies have shown, and indeed practical experience in hospitals and other healthcare facilities have demonstrated, well-designed buildings are key to the provision of quality healthcare. This is a subject that has formed the centrepiece of many pieces of academic research, with the Design Council’s Future Health: Sustainable Places for Health

There remains a considerable focus on governance and assurance within NHS estates, with demands for Trust EFM teams to demonstrate compliance to their Boards, with an expanding agenda that also now sees environmental and sustainability issues to the fore, as well as the challenge, for some, of looming PFI handbacks, to contend with. In the

Hospital support services are the backbone of healthcare operations. They encompass a wide range of functions essential for the smooth running of a hospital. These services include everything from cleaning and maintenance to portering, catering, and security. They ensure that the hospital environment is clean, safe, and conducive to patient care. Additionally, support services often

Across the whole of the built environment, hospitals are arguably the facilities that host the most complex array of functions. The sheer variety of different interactions between employees and patients – and the range of equipment and environmental factors that are needed to facilitate those interactions – means that they can be more challenging to

Capturing all the data necessary for the annual ERIC report can be daunting, and sometimes painful, for those in each NHS Trust charged with the task, due to the dispersed nature of the information required – which is normally scattered across different parts of the organisation. Yet having accurate data is crucial for assessing a