Following welcome drinks in the Caernarfon Suite at the Celtic Manor Resort Hotel, a stone’s throw from the ICC Wales conference and exhibition venue, IHEEM Wales Branch Chair, John Prendergast, who is Senior Decontamination Engineer at NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership — Specialist Estate Services, welcomed guests, and said he hoped all had enjoyed a productive and informative first day at the conference and exhibition. Announcing that he would be the night’s Master of Ceremonies, he recalled some of the — in many cases — considerably smaller-scale past Welsh Branch events, and said that it had been a Branch ambition over the past 2-3 years to hold a conference and exhibition at the ICC. He thanked IHEEM’s Head Office team, the organising committee, the Welsh Branch members involved, and staff at NHS Wales Shared Services, for making this a reality, and several Branch members for presenting at and chairing a number of this year’s conferences sessions.
John Prendergast explained that in mid-summer 2023, the organisers of this year’s event had begun visiting potential venues, and had been highly impressed with both the ICC and the neighbouring Celtic Manor Resort Hotel. One of those involved had been Graham Stanton IEng, FIHEEM, AE(D), a Wales Branch and IHEEM stalwart who spent over 40 years in the Welsh Health Service, in particular at NHS Wales Shared Services, working in the sterilising and decontamination arena for the last 33 years until his retirement.
Contributor to national guidance
During that time, Graham Stanton had represented the Welsh Health Service in the formation of national guidance, both for Wales and England’s Department of Health, and been instrumental in setting up and chairing active decontamination groups in both Sterile Services and Endoscopy. An Authorised Person (Sterilisers) from 1995, who in July 2008 became an Authorising Engineer (Decontamination), he chaired the IHEEM AE(D) Registration Board after stepping down as Chair of the IHEEM Decontamination Technology Platform, and represented IHEEM on the Professional Bodies Group (DPECF) bodies and Wales branch of IHEEM.
Sadly, Graham Stanton died earlier this year, and after John Prendergast concluded his welcome, he introduced Mark Furmage, Decontamination Engineer at NWSSP SES — who also knew Graham well — who raised a toast to a ‘departed friend and colleague’, and gave a short speech paying tribute to a highly committed and much-loved individual and professional who he said had been a ‘good mentor to us all’. He also pointed out the ‘gold’ envelopes on each dinner table, and asked guests to use them to donate to Graham Stanton’s favoured charity — the RNLI. He told those gathered: “I think anybody in this room who has used any of NHS Wales’s services over the last 30-40 years has much to thank Graham for. He was a passionate engineer, and believed in patient safety. One of the key things I think everyone who knew Graham well would agree is that if he didn’t agree with you, he’d soon tell you. He was a fantastic person, who liked to lead from the front.”
Mark Furmage added that he wouldn’t be in his current professional position, and qualified as an Authorising Engineer (Decontamination), if it wasn’t for Graham, and owed him ‘a lot’. He said: “I think all of us at NHS Wales are in a better position thanks to the work that he did. He was an absolute gentleman, and a credit to his family. John and I spent time with him last year at an AE(D) event, and had a fabulous evening. Graham spent time at sea in his younger days, and was a fabulous storyteller. I would like everyone to rise a glass to Graham and his family.”
John Prendergast said: “It is great to have David, Nicola, and Leo from Graham’s family attending this evening.” He explained that after dinner, guests would hear from after-dinner speaker, Colin Jackson, ‘for a talk on sport and his experiences within life’, dubbing the athlete ‘an icon of track and field’. He said: “To all of us of certain age, he, Linford Christie, and Sally Gunnell, were among our sporting heroes back then.”
On the dance floor
When Colin Jackson spoke, he told dinner guests that ‘in professional sport, there’s lots of different, and sometimes unexpected, things that happen in one’s life’. He told guests: “I can remember that when I was just about to break a world record you never quite projected yourself forward to the future. Now, when I think about it, standing on that line just before I broke the record, if you’d told me 30 years’ later I’d be on the Strictly Come Dancing dancefloor, I would never in a million years have envisaged that could happen.”
He continued: “When you were a kid and you thought about a top sportsman, the TV show you knew they wanted to be on was the BBC’s Question of Sport; appearing on it would have made the individual an icon. That’s certainly changed now; unless you’re dancing on a Saturday night, you’re not impressing people all that much.”
When he was asked to appear in the ballroom dancing series, Colin Jackson said the reason he agreed was that one of his close friends was the show’s producer. Having initially declined, after being further ‘badgered’ to appear on the show, in January 2005 he agreed to take part. Having not given it much further thought in the following months, he was telephoned by the show’s producers in September 2005 and asked to meet his dance partner, New Zealand-born professional ballroom dancer, Erin Boag, who — due to her self-confessed ‘no-nonsense’ approach — he subsequently named ‘Miss Whiplash’. The pair came second in the 2005 series, being pipped to the title by England cricketer, Darren Gough, and his dance partner, Lilia Kopylova. In 2006, however, the athlete became the first competitor who had not won the main series to win the Strictly Come Dancing Christmas special.
Are you nervous?
When, after numerous rehearsals, it was time to appear on the 2005 series, Colin Jackson recalled Erin Boag asking him if he was nervous. Having competed in track and field events worldwide, he had said: ‘No, not really.’ “When it was time to compete,” he explained, “Erin took off a head scarf, and dropped her house coat. She was wearing a skirt this high, and an even shorter top. She looked at me, and all she said was: ‘Concentrate!’ She then added: ‘If my dress gets caught when we are dancing, or anything like that, rip it, and I’ll just continue dancing.’ Then,” he continued, “the music starts, and we are doing a cha-cha. So, I swing her one way, and then the other, and then I drop on the floor, and then she lays across my leg. Right as she does so, her dress catches in my belt. My heart stopped, because first of all, I was thinking, ‘Her name is Miss Whiplash. If I I don’t do what I’m told, I’m in trouble.’ However, if I push her and her dress comes up, I am in even more — what a dilemma. The music re-started, and she said: ‘Colin, Just push me upwards.’ I gave her the biggest push, and she spun beautifully off my leg as if nothing had happened. We did alright, with a couple of good high marks, and as we were walking off, she said: ‘Why didn’t you just rip my dress?’ I answered: ‘I think my Nan is watching.'”
As ‘an ordinary kid from down the road in Cardiff’, Colin Jackson went on to explain to the dinner guests, he simply wanted ‘to do the best I could at whatever I did’. However, he decided quite early on what success was going to mean for him. He explained: “As a youngster, what does success mean? It means you can buy a fast car, a big house, and then have lots of wealth after that. That was what success was for me back then. Now, on reflection, I realise you’ve got to go full circle. What you leave behind — your positive legacy — is the true testament of success. So that’s where I’m now, although it takes a bit of time to get there.”
In an honest and interesting speech, Colin Jackson went on to describe some of the highs and lows of his sporting career, the lessons he learned, and some of the interesting sporting and other personalities he met. A former sprint and hurdling athlete who specialised in 100 metre hurdles, Colin Jackson CBE enjoyed a career in which he represented Great Britain and Wales, won an Olympic Silver medal, became World Champion twice, World Indoor Champion once, went undefeated at the European Championships for 12 years, and was a two-time Commonwealth Champion. His World Record of 12.91 seconds for the 110 m hurdles stood for over a decade, and he remains the 60 metre hurdles World Record holder.
First medal
Winning his first major medal — a Silver — in the 110 m hurdles aged just 19 at the 1986 Commonwealth Games, he soon established himself on the global scene, taking Bronze at the 1987 World Championships in Athletics, and a Silver at the 1988 Summer Olympics. After winning another Silver in the 60 metres hurdles at the 1989 IAAF World Indoor Championships, he won European and Commonwealth Gold medals in 1990. The 1993 season saw him reach the pinnacle of his sport: after a Silver medal at the 1993 Indoor Worlds, he went on to set a World Record of 12.91 seconds to become the 1993 World Champion. This landmark was unbeaten for almost thirteen years, and remains the World Championship record. He also helped the British 4 x 100 metres relay team to the World Silver medal. Between 1993 and 1995, he ran 44 races undefeated, and alongside European and Commonwealth Golds outdoors in 1994, he set another world record, running 7.30 seconds in the 60 m hurdles. A double Gold at the 1994 European Athletics Indoor Championships in the 60 m hurdles and sprint events saw him set a European record of 6.49 seconds over 60 metres. His 1995-1996 seasons were injury-affected, but he returned to the global stage in 1997, taking Silver twice, behind Anier Garcia at the Indoor World Championships and Allen Johnson in the World Outdoors. After winning the European Championships for a third consecutive time in 1998, he became World Champion indoors and out in 1999. He finished fifth at the 2000 Summer Olympics, and his last major medals came in 2002, taking European indoor and outdoor Gold and a Commonwealth Silver.
Sports commentating career
After a period working in sports management and coaching, he now works as a sports commentator for athletics and a television presenter (predominantly for the BBC). He has appeared not only on Strictly Come Dancing in 2005, but also on a number of other entertainment and factual television shows.
Already the holder of the MBE received in 1990 for his services to athletics, in 1999 he was promoted to OBE, and then to CBE in 2003. In his after-dinner speech, he recalled that one of his sporting heroes had been Linford Christie, the Jamaican-born British former sprinter and athletics coach, and the only man to have won Gold medals in the 100 metres at all four major competitions open to British athletes. When asked by one coach about other athletes he particular admired, Colin Jackson remembered telling him: “Linford has what I describe as presence; he walks in, and at six foot five you know he is in a room. That is a huge advantage when you’re going to go off to the running track. People know you’re there.”
Another fellow athlete he particularly admired was British decathlete, Daley Thompson, who he described as ‘the best athlete on the planet — Olympic champion, World Champion, European champion, Commonwealth Champion’. “He achieved everything any athlete would want to achieve,” Colin Jackson told dinner guests. When his coach smiled, and conceded he had a point, he remembered adding: “The reason he’s the biggest icon for me, though, is that he drives a Porsche!”
On meeting Daley Thompson as a fellow team member, Colin Jackson recalls thinking: ‘If I’m ever going to announce myself to my hero, it is now’. He took up the story: “I opened by saying: ‘Hello, Mr Thompson; my name is Colin Jackson.’ He said: ‘I know who you are.’ I replied: ‘I competed yesterday, and I want to show you what I won.’ “So, I proudly dived into my bag, and took out this beautiful velvet box, opened it, and proudly presented my Silver medal to my hero. Daley looked at the medal, back at me, and then again at the medal, and said: ‘I didn’t realise they made them in that colour.’
In later closing, Colin Jackson said: “At the end of the day, I always say to everyone that I speak to: ‘You know, my life started off really as just a bit of a daydream. I dreamt of big things. I dreamt of being successful. I dreamt that I could do it, and at the end of the day, after staying hard-working, committed, and focused, and all the other things that will take you to your heights, my dream came true — apart from the fact that I never got the Porsche. But if you work hard, stay committed, and you dare to dream, I always say to everybody: ‘Remember, your dream can come true.’ Thanks for listening.”
After applause and loud cheers, John Prendergast thanked Colin Jackson for his very entertaining speech, and explained that it was now time to present the evening’s awards. He thanked the sponsors AECOM, Tilbury Douglas, ModuleCo Healthcare, the IHEEM Welsh Branch, and Tarkett. He explained: “We had a number of nominations in various categories, and the panel that decided each individual winner is made up of members of the IHEEM Welsh Branch. This year we followed quite a tight specification for the award criteria.”
Apprentice of the Year 2024
The first award was for Apprentice of the Year, sponsored by AECOM. John Prendergast explained: “The winner in this category is a young lady who has progressed from the administrative side of healthcare into the Estates Department. She’s been employed as an Assistant Project Manager in the Capital Estates team, and has been heavily involved within schemes within Powys Teaching Health Board, as well as successfully completing her first year at university.” The 2024 winner in this category was named as Megan Thomas. As she was unable to attend, Adam Mierzejewski, Regional director of AECOM, accepted the award on her behalf from Simon Russell, Deputy Director at NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership. The citation said: “In four years, Megan’s ambition and hard work has led to her being appointed as an Assistant Project Manager in the Capital Estates Team, and successfully completing her first year at university. Megan developed rapidly and became a rising star in the organisation she worked in. She is highly professional, eager to learn, and always happy to help and assist. Meg supported on the Bro Ddyfi Community Hospital redevelopment scheme, which was hugely complex, and involved coordination and communication with numerous stakeholders. This included organising, and taking part in, several workshops with the local community, in which Meg was also able to be a key translator/communicator for groups wishing to communicate in Welsh.
Estates Champion of Champions
The evening’s second award was for Estates Champion of Champions, sponsored by Tilbury Douglas. There were four nominations: Julian Weaver-Jones, Discretional Capital Projects Manager, Hywel Dda University Health Board; Louise Morris and Kevin Francis, Powys Teaching Health Board; Lloyd Morgan of Powys Teaching Health Board, and Nigel Hill, Mechanical Estates Officer and Authorised Person, Velindre NHS Trust. John Prendergast explained that the winner was Nigel Hill, who he explained had worked in in the NHS for 45 years. He said: “He’s worked off the tools, into the Estates Officer role, and he’s fulfilled that with great commitment, and all at Velindre NHS Trust are proud of his commitment and thank him very much.” The award was presented to him by Chris Edmonds, AECOM Regional Operations Director for South Wales.
The citation explained that Nigel Hill had started his career as an apprentice in the old South Glamorgan Health Authority, then working as a technician for over 35 years, and as a Mechanical Estates Officer for four. It said: “He has been integral to reaching the substantial assurance levels in water safety as deputy RP for the past two years from Shared Service Partners, and his decision to retire and return shows his commitment to the Trust. At 60 years’ old he is always happy to support the service out of hours and at weekends, where many tasks are especially difficult to complete in a busy operational environment at Velindre Cancer Centre and Welsh Blood Service. Nigel has gone above and beyond to support the estates services across the Trust, and is truly an exemplar of a true estates professional.”
Estates and Facilities Team of the Year
The third award was for Estates and Facilities Team of the Year, sponsored by ModuleCo Healthcare. John Prendergast said there had been two nominations — for the Velindre NHS Trust Estates Team, and the Hywel Dda University Health Board Estates, Facilities, and Capital team. He said: “The award was given to this particular nominee because during the past 12 months, they’ve had unprecedented issues across the board, particularly at Withybush Hospital.” Team members from the winning organisation, Hywel Dda University Health Board, came up to the stage to receive the Award from ModuleCo Healthcare MD, Alan Wilson.
The citation said: “The team at Hywel Dda UHB have provided leadership, management, and essential direct support to all clinical departments during intensive RAAC plank survey and remedial works.
A key part of this was the support from NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership Specialist Estate Services and Welsh Government in securing substantial capital funding to deliver the extensive survey, temporary propping, and remedial works necessary. The team has also carried out significant repurposing works at Withybush Hospital and South Pembrokeshire Hospital to maintain business continuity there. Estates, Facilities, and Capital personnel at Hywel Dda University Health Board, with substantial support from colleagues at NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership, have undertaken the rigorous task of keeping a large regional acute hospital safe, compliant, and operational, while addressing this significant RAAC challenge.”
Best Exhibition Stand
The next award, for Best Exhibition Stand, chosen by members of the IHEEM Welsh Branch, which also sponsored it, was presented by NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership’s Peter Davies to boiler and heat transfer specialist, Fulton Boiler Works (GB). This award was presented to an exhibitor whose stand best reflected the event title, ‘Back to the Future’. Established in 1949, Fulton Boilers expanded to the UK in Bristol in 1966, and has facilities in in the USA and China. Fulton has extensive experience in the hospital and healthcare sectors. It said: “Solutions focus on efficiency, performance, and dependability, in a range of sizes and fully customisable systems capable of providing practical solutions to the most complex design needs.”
Sustainability Award
The fifth and final award presented for 2024 was the Sustainability Award, sponsored by Tarkett. Nominated were Powys Teaching Health Board for a scheme within Brecon War Memorial Hospital; the Welsh Ambulance Service NHS Trust — for a scheme at the Ambulance Station in Merthyr Tydfil, and Swansea Bay University Health Board, for its work within the Morriston Hospital site, developing a solar farm and electrical generation. John Prendergast said: “The team assessed the entries for this award very carefully, and we felt this nominee deserved to win for the cale of the saving, the carbon footprint reduction, the strong sustainability drive, and the greenhouse gases saved. The team from Swansea Bay University Health Board picked up its award from Tarkett’s Ross Dight.
The awards presentation having now concluded, John Prendergast told guests he hoped they would enjoy the rest of the evening, and attendees then mingled and enjoyed networking and a drink with their colleagues and industry counterparts.