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Showing results for tags 'Infrastructure / building / equipment'.
Found 110 results
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Content ArticleKaren Lesley Starling died on 7 February 2020 aged 54 and Anne Edith Martinez died on 17 December 2020 aged 65. Both deceased underwent successful lung transplant procedures at the new Royal Papworth Hospital. However, both women became infected with a hospital acquired infection, namely Mycobacteria abscessus (M. abscessus), and died. M. abscessus is an environmental non-tuberculous mycobacterium (NTM). It can sometimes be found in soil, dust and water, including municipal water supplies. It is usually harmless for healthy people but may cause opportunistic infection in vulnerable individuals. Lung transplant patients and lung defence patients such as Mrs Starling and Mrs Martinez were at particular risk of infection from mycobacteria, including M. abscessus.
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Content ArticleBehind the scenes at one of the UK’s biggest hospitals as it transitions from old to new. The Royal Liverpool University Hospital moves thousands of patients and staff to a new building. This programme documents their journey, the challenges faced and human factors involved.
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Content Article
This is part of our series of Patient Safety Spotlight interviews, where we talk to people working for patient safety about their role and what motivates them. Tracey talks to us about the role of NHS Supply Chain in ensuring the products procured through the NHS Supply are of high quality and are safe for healthcare organisations to use. She also highlights the vital importance of complaints and the need for staff who don’t work in direct care delivery to recognise their role in patient safety. -
Content ArticleAt the beginning of the pandemic, there was an important question to resolve: is coronavirus “airborne”? If it was, then this meant that the virus could transmit through the air from person to person, even over long distances, in indoor environments. We now know the answer is yes. In the 19th century diseases such as cholera and typhoid taught us the importance of water quality – coronavirus in the 21st century should provide that same realisation on the importance of air quality. Ideally, all indoor environments where people congregate should be fitted with modern, efficient ventilation systems that flush out potentially contaminated air and replace it with fresh, clean air continually. This would prevent the build-up of virus-containing aerosols and reduce the likelihood of transmission of covid-19 and other diseases such as influenza. With energy costs rising, it is vitally important to find methods of preventing virus transmission that are safe, quick to implement and affordable, writes Dr Alice Bunn in this HSJ article.
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Content ArticleIn this blog, Saffron Cordery, Interim Chief Executive at NHS Providers, examines progress on the Government's manifesto pledge to build 40 new hospitals in England by 2030. Known as the New Hospital Programme (NHP), many of these projects are facing serious delays, with seven of the 40 not yet having a completion date. In a recent survey by NHS Providers, nearly two in three leaders said delays to the programme affected their ability to deliver safe and effective patient care, with all those facing delays reporting cost implications. Saffron highlights the opportunity the NHP presents to boost healthcare and renew services, and argues that the impact on communities will be huge if the new hospital plans are scrapped.
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Content ArticleTo address increasing patient demands and acuity, the Calgary Health Region is renovating the intensive care units (ICU) at three of their adult acute care sites. Before finalising the design plans, mock-up rooms were created at two of the sites according to several proposed room designs in order to identify potential issues during the design phase of the project. All necessary equipment was included within each of the two mock-up rooms so as to nearly replicate a functioning ICU. Evaluations of equipment, room layout and conflicts were accomplished using patient simulation of a cardiac arrest, an acutely ill patient, a palliative care patient and the admission of a new patient. Digital videos, think aloud audio tracks and extensive debriefing sessions were combined and analyzed. Specific category issues were identified including the articulating arms, visibility of the patient monitors, equipment usability, collisions with equipment, and communication issues. Elaboration of each issue and presentation of design recommendations is given.
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Content ArticleAfter the COVID-19 pandemic is over, a key issue remains for the UK’s NHS: Will there be less avoidable patient harm, fewer occurrences of “never events,” and fewer headline grabbing patient safety crises? John Tingle explores this further in his blog for the Bill of Health. John Tingle is a regular contributor to the Bill of Health blog and is a Lecturer in Law at Birmingham Law School in the UK and a Visiting Professor of Law, Loyola University Chicago, School of Law.
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Content ArticleThe pictures of the amazing transformation of the London ExCel Centre into NHS Nightingale exemplify some of the incredible large-scale changes happening across the health service to respond to the Covid-19 (coronavirus) outbreak. In this blog, Beccy Baird highlights some of the amazing, less easily photographed, innovations happening in general practice, which has transformed itself in the space of just a few weeks.
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Content ArticleNuffield Trust analysis of data to look at how the cost of the maintenance backlog in the English NHS has changed over the years, with the latest rise in the costs of necessary repairs and maintenance in the health service making it an even more pressing factor in calculations ahead of the Spending Review.
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News Article
Overheating and flooding at hospitals in England ‘pose threat to patient safety’
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Record levels of overheating and a sharp rise in flooding at England’s hospitals are putting vulnerable patients at risk, figures show. Analysis of NHS data by the Liberal Democrats found that the number of health trusts reporting overheating in clinical areas had doubled compared with six years ago, and floods had increased by nearly 60% from last year. An overheating incident is logged when an occupied ward or clinical area’s daily maximum temperature exceeds 26C, the temperature at which some patients become unable to cool themselves effectively. The latest government figures show that in the summer of 2022 there were an estimated 2,985 excess deaths due to heatwaves, the highest number on record. Heatwaves also forced a fifth of UK hospitals to cancel operations. The number of serious flooding incidents, where water caused disruption such as by breaching a building or flooding a road, rose from 176 to 279. The climate crisis is expected to increase these risks to hospitals and patients. Helen Buckingham, the director of strategy at the Nuffield Trust, said: “These figures are a cause for real concern about the resilience of the NHS’s estate to the growing threat from extreme weather in the UK. As temperatures have climbed, so too have the number of overheating incidents in NHS hospitals.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 27 November 2023
