Valley Children’s Healthcare, a pre-eminent paediatric care provider in Central California, is on a pioneering path to become the first Net Zero paediatric hospital campus in the United States. This ambitious project, a collaboration with Mazzetti, aims to establish the largest paediatric healthcare renewable energy microgrid in the country, marking a significant stride towards sustainable

Les Szabo, NSW (New South Wales) State manager at Australian water treatment specialist, HydroChem, discusses work to implement an effective Legionella risk management and prevention strategy for the hot water system at a Sydney hospital. Among the key steps taken to address the existing protocols’ shortcomings were establishing a proper sampling protocol, implementing a monthly

The Trovex concept ward illustration features five key solutions: Hygidoor, Diamond wall cladding, Resilience wall protection, Hygipod IPS, and Hygipod MSU. There’s a closer look at each on the back cover. Each product has been designed to complement the others, culminating in a unified hygienic finish. The ease with which these products – all of

Smriti Singh, Associate Partner at The PSC, discusses the business management consultancy’s recent codevelopment – with Plymouth Local Care Partnership – of a so-called ‘Blueprint’ approach to designing estates which the two organisations says both meets population needs, and enables integration of care. The approach taken strongly aligns with the New Hospital Programme principle that

Sean Woodhead, associate architect at global multidisciplinary design practice, BDP, looks at how the design of Heatherwood Hospital in Berkshire – which opened just under two years ago – has helped support positive outcomes at this specialist, planned care facility. He suggests that as a dedicated planned care centre, Heatherwood ‘undoubtedly represents a significant component

Chris Brown, Public Sector lead at IES, ‘a global innovator in integrated performance-based analysis for the built environment’, discusses the need for NHS Trusts to be able to provide comprehensive data on current performance, and good evidence of the need for funding, when seeking monies for heat decarbonisation and energy efficiency measures. One of the

The last few years have seen the NHS stretched further than ever – and over the past 2-3 years, it has rarely been out of the headlines. One of the less widely publicised challenges facing our health services, however, stems from its actual structures. It all comes down to the historic use of reinforced autoclaved

On the first day of last October’s Healthcare Estates 2023 conference, Natalie Forrest, the Senior Responsible Owner for the Programme, gave an update on progress with the New Hospital Programme. She also discussed the principles behind, and anticipated benefits of, Hospital 2.0 – a national approach to delivering new hospitals more quickly, at a lower

David Williams, Vice President, Transactional Business, UK & Ireland, at Schneider Electric, argues that achieving Net Zero is ‘a whole company initiative’, and that businesses and other organisations – including healthcare providers – serious about their carbon reduction efforts will likely need to invest in a combination of technologies and processes that work together to

Effective ventilation is vital to ensure safe, comfortable, and efficient indoor environments. For hospitals and healthcare facilities in particular, ventilation is a critical component in a building’s life-support system. There are a number of reasons that specifications for hospital ventilation systems are significantly more stringent than for typical commercial buildings. Use of healthcare premises is

In the year IHEEM celebrated its 80th anniversary, the Institute’s Hong Kong Branch marked its own 25th anniversary with a symposium in the city last November. Expert international speakers discussed pressing issues including sustainability and Net Zero, climate change, ‘alternative’ and ‘greener’ energy, the resilience, running costs, and carbon footprint of high-rise hospital buildings, and

In six and a half years as Director and Head of Profession, NHS Estates, at NHS England, Simon Corben has faced some considerable challenges and a pretty full in-tray. To date his agenda has included directing the central NHSE Estates & Facilities team and the national EFM workforce in their rapid response to COVID-19, guiding

Speaking at last October’s Healthcare Estates 2023 conference, Suzanne MacCormick, an experienced healthcare planner at healthcare consultancy, Spencer Harrison, discussed how getting the sensory aspects of healthcare facilities right plays a critical part in providing the optimal care environment and speeding recovery. While the importance of – for example – selecting the right colours, and

The crisis facing water supplies in the UK is acute, with a potential drought on the horizon. All organisations are under pressure to use less water whenever possible, and this includes the NHS, which uses approximately 50 billion cubic metres of water per year,1 making it one of the UK’s largest water consumers. Using less

Scott Tacchi, Head of MMC at Sir Robert McAlpine, argues that for the true benefits of MMC approaches to be fully understood, a comprehensive breakdown of the cost-benefits, to provide the data and information necessary to effectively implement MMC practices from a cost reduction perspective, is required. He says this is a practice that has