COMMENT
An exciting time to be a healthcare engineer
Welcome to the first HEJ of 2025, and may I wish all a Happy and Prosperous New Year? As promised in November’s HEJ, this edition includes reports on two interesting and complementary keynote presentations at October’s Healthcare Estates 2024 conference (pages 29-34 and 37-42). In the keynote given jointly by the CEO of EngineeringUK, the Chair of the Engineering Council, and the Director and Head of Profession for NHS Estates & Facilities at NHS England, the speakers discussed some of the current challenges in recruiting engineers, and the work their organisations are doing to help address current and anticipated skills shortages. EngineeringUK’s Dr Hilary Leevers said recruiting and succession planning were currently difficult right across the engineering profession, while looking towards the next decade, hundreds of thousands of new roles would need filling, ‘most driven by Net Zero, but also via the renewal of infrastructure, and increasing digitisation and automation.’ She highlighted some of the EngineeringUK’s impactful work – including with IHEEM, through events such as The Big Bang Fair, Tomorrow’s Engineers Week, and the Climate Schools programme – ‘to ensure that more young people choose engineering and technology careers’. Engineering Council Chair, Professor John Chudley, underlined the professional benefits of registration with the Engineering Council via a PEI, and, with considerable
Cover Story
Tailored pendant solutions for optimised clinical environments
BeaconMedaes understands that no two healthcare settings are the same. Clinical design expertise ensures that its comprehensive patient environment product portfolio can be tailored to meet the specific and unique needs of every setting, ‘enhancing efficiency, optimising workflow, and supporting optimal patient care’. As part of its commitment to always finding new ways
to better serve the healthcare community, BeaconMedaes has now added medical pendants to its range of medical gas solutions. The designs prioritise functionality and flexibility, and are meticulously tailored to interface with all classifications of medical devices. From flow meters, vacuum regulators, and medical ventilators to infusion systems, vital signs monitoring, and IT systems, the pendants ‘integrate seamlessly into the clinical environment, and are supported by independent structural certification, ensuring safety and reliability’. With a wide range of configurable medical pendant and accessory options, these versatile tailored pendant solutions can be customised to support critical care units, all theatre surgical applications, and beyond. They are suitable for both new and replacement medical pendant installations, even if the original system was installed by another supplier. Each
January 2025 | Volume 79 | Issue 01
Understanding the Building
Safety Act see page 26
FC HEJ
Jan25.indd 1
product is crafted with attention to detail, and is future-proof, ensuring adaptability to evolving healthcare technologies. The BeaconMedaes Patient Environment Team recently celebrated the successful completion of its second medical pendant project at a hospital in the north of England. The HDU’s existing GE vital signs monitoring system and associated CPU units were seamlessly integrated into the existing medical gas system, providing a streamlined, efficient, 360° turnkey solution that improves the clinical environment for staff and patients.
Addressing the engineering
skills gap see page 37
A greater role for ‘integrated
hospitals’ see page 47
12/12/2024 09:39
BeaconMedaes UK Ltd Greaves Close Markham Vale Chesterfield, S44 5FB T: 01246 474242
www.beaconmedaes.com/en-uk
January 2025 Health Estate Journal 5
thought being given to the current routes to EngTech, IEng, and Chartered Engineer, emphasised that the organisation values all routes to registration – including apprenticeships, and ‘experiential learning’.” NHS England’s Simon Corben explained that 2023-
2024 saw some 800 NHS estates and facilities staff across England access apprenticeships. However, the central NHSE Estates and Facilities team recognises there is still much more to do to boost engineering recruitment, with the diversity of the workforce and pay levels two of the most pressing issues. With the advent of technologies like AI, and increasing
digitalisation of both patient care and estate management, the job of the healthcare engineer and their estate management counterpart looks set to become even more interesting, and indeed varied, in the future. All three speakers are enthusiastic engineering advocates. However they also recognise the importance of industry-wide collaboration in the quest for talent, a choice of ways to progress up the engineering career and qualifications ladder, and continuing outreach into schools, colleges, and other educational institutions to attract ‘new blood’, if the UK is to have the engineering workforce it needs to prosper.
Jonathan Baillie, Editor
jonathanbaillie@
stepcomms.com
With the advent of technologies like AI, the job of the healthcare engineer looks set to become even more interesting
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