RECENT NEWS

Hull’s new Jean Bishop Integrated Care Centre (ICC) opened in July during the week the NHS celebrated its 70th birthday.

Architect, Medical Architecture, says one of the centre’s key goals is to ‘transform lives for the elderly’ in Hull – by providing out-of-hospital care, while reducing unnecessary hospital admissions, ‘enabling enables residents to keep fit, healthy, and living independently, in their own homes’.

Ascom UK is deploying hundreds of its Myco smartphones to enable on-call doctors at the Royal Bolton Hospital to better care for seriously ill patients at night and over weekends.

Initially, 30 handheld Myco smart devices are being used by on-call doctors and night nurse practitioners to triage emergencies across the hospital’s medical, surgical, and orthopaedics wards – the first phase in a phased rollout of 303 Ascom smartphones, part of an electronic observations project to ‘deliver time-critical alerts’ to clinical teams across Bolton NHS Foundation Trust.

‘Co-production’ in the design and delivery of mental healthcare was the central theme at an evening event held in June at london’s Dragon Café in Borough, reports DIMHN President, Joe Forster, who attended.

In support of this year’s Dementia Action Week – the Alzheimer’s Society’s annual awareness campaign which ‘asks everyone to take actions big and small to improve the lives of people affected by dementia’, Dulux Trade launched its new ‘evidencebased’ Healthcare Colour Palette as part of its commitment ‘to ensure that all healthcare environments are as dementiafriendly as possible’.

last May’s launch – at DIMH 2017 – of the first in what the DIMHN intends will be a series of concise but informative evidence-based guides to improving various elements of the mental healthcare environment, was followed this May by the unveiling of a second publication, focusing this time on the impact of sound on all those using such spaces.

Stanley Security it to partner with software manufacturer, Oxehealth, ‘to supply advanced patient care and staff safety systems for the UK mental health sector’.

H igh levels of natural light and ventilation |are the hallmarks of Tree Top Village in Newcastle, a retirement village ‘with an inspirational design’ that roof window supplier, Velux says ‘achieves its goal’ through extensive use of Velux Modular Skylights.

The failure of a personal safety alarm system to live up to the supplier’s promises has seen care home operator, Millennium Care, replace it with a Pinpoint Staff Personal Safety Alarm System at its Sunnyborough facility near Goole in yorkshire, a specialised care home for adults with conditions ranging from autism to learning difficulties, and with ‘very complex needs and extremely challenging backgrounds’.

A psychology clinic on London’s Harley Street claims to be ‘pioneering the way for virtual reality (VR) to be used to treat a range of mental health issues’.

Fire door manufacturer, Firedoors, says its recent collaboration with alarm management specialist, Drax Technology, has resulted in the development of ‘the world’s first smart fire door’.

Safehinge Primera has opened a new ‘Design & and Innovation Studio’ at its Blackpool office.

At May’s Design in Mental Health 2018 exhibition, Sutton-headquartered Designplan lighting showed its Basilica Tuneable White luminaire – designed to mimic circadian rhythm, and thus to help speed recovery, particularly in inpatient settings.

Apollo Fire Detectors has launched a new, ‘unique’ low-profile fire detector – Soteria Dimension, which uses new optical sensing technology ‘in the form of a virtual sensing chamber’ that operates on the light-scatter principle.

A survey by the Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (CWP) which found that, on specific doors, ‘there were high risks associated with the attachment of ligatures, primarily over door tops’, has seen the Trust opt for what supplier, Intastop, says is ‘a recognised and highly acclaimed solution’.

The COBS personal security range of products is now available from Atus Systems, strengthening its range of both personal and staff security solutions.

Current mental health spending would likely need to double to take the number of people with mental health problems receiving NHS treatment from 40 per cent to 70 per cent, according to a new funding report.

People with dementia and a supporter were able to work together with design experts to learn the skills needed to become more involved in the process of designing dementia inclusive environments at what is claimed to have been the world’s first design school for people with dementia, held at Birmingham’s Crowne Plaza Hotel last month.

The VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and the Metropolia University of Applied Sciences in Helsinki are collaborating with industrial partners to investigate opportunities to extend integration of visually attractive solar modules into the architecture of building façades.

NHS Shared Business Services (NHS SBS) launched on 1 April a new Construction Consultancy Services Framework, which it says is expected to save the public sector some £16 million over the next four years.

Tovertafel (meaning ‘Magic Table’ in Dutch), a system that projects interactive light animations onto any table to create games for people with moderate to severe dementia and adults with severe learning disabilities, ‘to encourage them to instinctively participate to stimulate both physical and social activity’, is now available in the UK.