VENTILATION
Digitising ventilation system verifications
A fully digital approach to verification is reshaping how critical ventilation systems are managed, helping estates teams move from reactive maintenance to improved system availability and lifecycle performance. Stephen Bartlett, director at Invigilatis, is the product architect of Seeker Ventilation – the first fully digital verification solution for critical ventilation system. He argues that digitised processes ensure consistent and more timely reporting, clearer compliance information, and stronger alignment with evolving legal requirements. As technology advances and datasets grow, AI-driven benchmarking and predictive insights will further enhance the management of these vital systems.
Currently, under HTM 03-01, it is expected that critical ventilations systems are inspected quarterly, and verified at least annually, to provide the healthcare provider’s ventilation stakeholders with the required assurance for their patients’ safety. Given the expected life of ventilation assets is 20 years, some are likely to become less reliable as they approach the end of their useful lives. Therefore, more frequent verifications are required. However, provided AHUs are well maintained and any
risks are understood, even those which are approaching/ beyond the end of their useful lives may continue to operate safely, thus delaying the expensive cost of replacement.
Pace of technology Digitisation enables the verifications of critical ventilation system to be completed in much less time; more frequently; with much less effort, and distributed to stakeholders rapidly. Therefore, as the pace of technology change continues to accelerate, fully digital verifications will replace today’s traditional approach with its subsequent manual preparation of a detailed report, which is both time consuming and costly. With NHS budgets becoming even tighter, it is
inevitable that a digital approach to verifications will be regarded as essential, both to provide timely assurance and to optimise the asset life cycles. Digitisation also improves all aspects of reporting because access to the verification outcomes is more immediate and the automated aggregation of the verification data provides users with holistic views of their annual verifications, which then enables them to communicate more easily with their peers and: n Plan comprehensive maintenance programmes rather than just dealing with urgent remedials reactively.
n Identify components that are likely to be more prone to early failures.
n Make better procurement decisions at both operational and strategic levels.
Digitising the entire verification process is the next significant digital transformation now there is widespread deployment of sensors, both to monitor the performance of ventilation assets, and to minimise their energy consumption which then aids the achievement of Net Zero. By adopting this smarter way of working: n Healthcare providers benefit from having better assurance that their critical ventilation systems are working effectively and patients can be cared for in safer environments.
January 2026 Health Estate Journal 41
n Estates teams benefit from savings on both costs and time. As well as increasing their visibility and levels of compliance, prompt reporting enables them to improve maintenance regimes, so by adopting some of the best managerial practices they can improve overall performance of these critical systems and asset availability.
n Improvements in the overall approach to maintenance can then facilitate the reduction of downtime, thus making more effective use of scarce clinical resources.
Fully digital Seeker Ventilation from Invigilatis provides the first of these fully digital verification systems. It consists of an app; automated reporting, and results database with dashboards and charting which are accessible 24/7 via a cloud-based portal. These closely integrated components provide a radically new way of handling verifications. Both contractors and internal staff can deliver high quality verifications with the possibility of immediate reporting in a standard format based on HTM 03-01. Overall, considerable operational improvement can be achieved because: n Data capture is simpler with real time checks of measurements and compliance.
n Reporting can be immediate. n Users have holistic views on compliance for all suites and AHUs.
Hospital theatre ventilation – replacing stale air with fresh, filtered air – is crucial for preventing infections.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88
