RECENT NEWS

The Door & Hardware Federation (DHF) has released a new Best Practice Guide for the locks and building hardware industry covering the British Standard for Mechanically Operated Push-Button Locksets (BS 8607:2014 + A1:2016).

Static Systems Group recently welcomed committee members from the Design in Mental Health Network (DiMHN) to its Staffordshire headquarters, where the DiMHN committee combined a CPD visit with its latest board meeting.

The main aims of the visit, which was co-hosted by Static Systems Group and Guardian Staff Safety Systems, were to establish opportunities for collaborative working and highlight the latest product developments in attack alarm, fire, and call systems.

Sean Duggan, chief executive of the Mental Health Network, part of the NHS Confederation, has welcomed Secretary of State for Health, Matt Hancock’s announcement of a new strategy for dealing with violence against NHS staff.

Confirmation of the extra £20.5 bn more in ‘real terms’ annual funding for the NHS by 2023-2024 announced this June, – including at least £2 bn annually for mental health, and an end to the use of the current PFI model, were among the notable elements impacting on health and social care in Chancellor Philip Hammond’s 2018 Budget Speech delivered on 29 October.

The third in a series of ‘Design With People in Mind’ guides to be published to date by the Design in Mental Health Network – this time focusing on the importance of stakeholder engagement in the design of both new-builds and refurbishments in mental healthcare, was launched at IHEEM’s Healthcare Estates 2018 in early October.

100% Hackitt – an industry initiative to encourage the government to deliver all of the recommendations contained within Dame Judith's report – was launched in Westminster on 22 October by Local Authority Building Control (LABC) and the British Board of Agrément (BBA).

NHS Trusts in England are being strongly encouraged by NHSI Improvement to apply for s share of £46 m in Public Dividend Funding to implement ‘energy-efficient’ LED lighting in their healthcare facilities, in the process not only improving the patient environment, but also potentially cutting their annual electricity usage by 5-20 per cent.

Announcing the money’s availability during an ‘NHSI Surgery’ held on 10 October during IHEEM's Healthcare Estates 2018 event, Fiona Daly, NHSI’s National Sustainability and EFM Workforce lead / Operational Productivity, announced that against a backdrop where the organisation is ‘committed to working with provides to help realise savings’, implementing energy-saving LED lighting schemes in healthcare facilities had been shown to offer ‘proven return-on-investment’ and both maintenance and carbon savings.

Find Memory Care has teamed up with Tees, Esk & Wear Valley NHS to enhance the environment at Acomb Garth in York, a unit for male adults with dementia.

Intastop has launched a ‘hygienic, impactresistant sheet’ as a cladding for walls and doors.

When developing products for the mental health sector, it should be obvious that standard designs won’t be appropriate, points out Alan Rees, MD of Corby-based Creative Ironmongery, who adds that, nevertheless, ‘some suppliers will try to convince buyers that a standard product is adequate’.

The new Zen seating range from Pineapple Contracts is ‘helping to build areas of calm, relaxation, and rest, in areas of challenging behaviour’.

British Gypsum’s ThistlePro DuraFinish skimming plaster is helping to protect the walls from accidental damage at a new sensory room facility for a charity organisation set up to prevent isolation for families affected by autistic spectrum condition, Autism Isolation No More.

Stanley Security has partnered with Londonbased security start-up, Doordeck, to launch the Stanley OneDoor smartphone-based access control system, which can be used with existing Stanley access control products, and reportedly ‘rolled out to an entire building in under one hour, without the need for new hardware’.

With its height, whitewashed walls, slate-clad appearance, and rural setting, combining to lend it a homely, domestic feel, at first glance the new Rathview Mental Health Facility in Omagh is perhaps not what you would expect.

Britplas has been appointed to supply the window and glazing package to Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust’s new mental health facility in Southport, continuing a relationship between the two organisations which started 12 years ago with the installation of the first ever Safevent windows.

A ‘state-of-the-art’ residential unit for vulnerable children and adolescents in North West England features Crittall Fendor’s CleanVent security windows.

Oxford VR, a spin-out company from the University of Oxford, has raised £3.2m with investors including Oxford Sciences Innovation, the University of Oxford, Force Over Mass, RT Capital, and GT Healthcare Capital Partners.

The company says this new investment round ‘powers the pace of company growth to bring automated, immersive, clinically validated Virtual Reality (VR) technologies to market as user-centred treatments for patients with mental health problems’.

A new ‘dementia-friendly’ home has been developed jointly by leading building science research centre, BRE, and Loughborough University experts, at the BRE Innovation Park in Watford, ‘to help educate housebuilders, carers, and relatives on how to better support those living with dementia’.

Formally opened by Lord Richard Best OBE DL, Co-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Housing & Care for Older People, the 100 m2 Victorian house has been adapted to cater for different types and stages of dementia, and is aimed at allowing sufferers to live independently. The upper floor been adapted for the more advanced stages of dementia.

With its height, whitewashed walls, slate-clad appearance, and rural setting all combining to lend it a homely domestic feel, at first glance the new Rathview Mental Health Facility in Omagh is perhaps not what you would expect.

“In fact,” say its architects, Todd Architects, ‘it would be hard to know it was a healthcare building at all.” Rathview, completed in April this year for the Western Health and Social Care Trust by main contractor, P&K McKaigue, was carefully designed ‘to break down traditional, preconceived ideas of mental health facilities, offering a fresh, residential approach in a peaceful countryside setting’.

Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust (TSDFT) has announced that it is to enter into a ‘50:50 strategic estates partnership and joint venture’ with Health Innovation Partners ‘to support the development of its estate and delivery of the community’s ambitious estates strategy’.

Morgan Sindall said: “This flexible, non-exclusive partnership is for an initial 15 years, and follows a successful public procurement and competitive dialogue process. This joint venture approach allows the Trust and care model partners to draw on the commercial expertise of Health Innovation Partners, and its parent companies, Arcadis and Morgan Sindall Investments.