INSTITUTE NEWS Letter to the Editor
Reply from Dr Nick Hill, chair of IHEEM’s Water Technical Platform
Dear Sir,
I was interested to read Nick Hill’s article in the February issue of HEJ regarding Authorising Engineers (Water). Nick expressed the view that the AE(W) should not sign off designs; a view which he had previously expressed during last year’s IHEEM Water HTM 04 seminar (London). However, the hospitals I work with do often ask me to ‘sign off’ on designs. The head of Engineering for one Trust put it simply that ‘the AE(E)’s job is to sign off designs’, and said he considered that this should equally be part of the AE (W) role.
Someone at the hospital has to ensure that the designer has met the brief and not designed in a problem which would cause issues in the future. I have previously argued that project engineers should become the de facto ‘Responsible Person’ for the project area. As project engineers are often employed on six-month contracts and/or are ‘project managers’ with limited technical qualifications, a suitable level of competency is seldom reached. Estates (works) Departments have suffered severe cuts in recent years, the result being that many ‘managers’ are often not suitably ‘competent’ to check water drawings/designs.
HTM 00 (and HTM 04-01 Part B) are exceptionally vague on this issue. However, alongside their duties assisting the Water Safety Group, the AE (W) can surely also assist on site on the preparation of the engineering specifications and ensuring that they are correctly implemented (one could say that the AE (W) therefore audits the projects).
David Tamblyn David Tamblyn Director, Envirosafe
The HEJ article and this reply to David Tamblyn’s letter reflect my personal opinions, and not those of IHEEM or its AE (W) registration board.
Regarding signing off’ designs, I know this is a bit of an ‘Eric Cantona answer’, but one may recall a few years ago that a performance artist attempted to find a needle which had been placed in a haystack. It took about one and a half days. If the objective was to avoid having needles in haystacks, then it would have been better if the person who put it in there hadn’t done so. If one were commissioned to find the needle, how long would one think it would take, and how much would one cost it for? Equally, when would one give up the search, and at that point how confidently could one say there was actually no needle present?
An AE reviews designs, but cannot check them to the point of signing them off – it would take longer than it took for the designer to do his/her work in the first place. The fact that many designers are out of date may be the fault of the client not taking sufficient care in their appointment, which, if they had, would in turn encourage designers to get up to date. The AE’s job is not to hide the shortcomings of others. There are many people who might not like this answer, but think about this: Where would CDM put the responsibility – designer, architect, builder, or owner? In conclusion, I agree with the answer within David’s question; namely that the AE (W) audits. Such audits should include an audit of designs.
April 2017 Health Estate Journal 11
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