IHEEM HISTORY AND HERITAGE
A stainless steel sink, cooker top, and oven, mounted on purpose-designed timber frames, with the assemblies bolted to purpose-made steel plates attached to the top of the pedestals, as designed for the Geriatric Unit at Salford’s Ladywell Hospital. Right: The ‘Ladywell’ bath ready to receive chair and patient.
“De Havilland was acquired by Hawker Siddeley in 1960, but remained as a separate company until about 1963, I believe.” The aerospace apprenticeship saw him gain wide-ranging experience on a range of production engineering equipment. He explained: “I went into engineering after studying locally at Worsley Technical College, gaining both an OND and an HNC.” On successfully completing his apprenticeship, he became a ‘qualified fitter and turner’, and then a Methods Engineer. He said: “I was also given the quite onerous responsibility of acting as a liaison engineer with De Havilland’s chief design offices for aerospace components in Hatfield, from which the Lostock factory received all its design drawings.”
A move into the NHS
Having gained ‘excellent experience’ with De Havilland and, subsequently, its new owner, Amos Millington joined the NHS in 1965 as the Deputy Group Engineer to the Salford Hospital Management Committee. He said: “As part of my apprenticeship training programme I had spent some time maintaining steam-raising plant during annual shutdowns, but, finding myself in a new NHS role in a large hospital group, embarked on a steep learning curve, which continued right through to my retirement in 2000, 35 years later. As chair of the Institute’s Publications Committee, it struck me that my earlier partial ignorance of the workings of a hospital’s engineering services was perhaps shared by other engineers new to the complexity and variety of hospital plant. I thus suggested the Institute consider producing a series of ‘basic information notes’ dealing in some depth with some of the key plant and equipment necessary for a hospital to function.”
This ‘idea’ was enthusiastically taken up by his successor as Publications Chairman, WJ (‘Bill’) Smith, Regional
40 Health Estate Journal August 2018
Engineer to the North Western Regional Health Authority in the late 1980s, who oversaw the Institute’s subsequent publication of a number of these ‘Basic Information Notes’, A4-sized publications with a cover, illustrated with black and white line drawings/schematics, and photographs, which the Institute marketed for £7.00 (£6.50 for members). See below for an example.
Park Hospital
In 1982, 17 years after first joining the NHS, Amos Millington was appointed District Works Officer to the Trafford District Health Authority; its general hospital was – at the time – known as Park Hospital. “The hospital had the honour to be recognised as the birthplace of our NHS, where, in 1948, Aneurin Bevan symbolically received the keys, signifying that control of hospitals was being
wrested from local authorities to the NHS,” he explained. “My predecessor at the hospital was Duncan McMillan, a regular lecturer on the Keele Courses who is pictured, front, centre, in the bottom photograph on page 21 of the April 2018 HEJ. A past Group Engineer at Trafford, meanwhile, was John Bolton, who became Chief Works Officer with the Department of Health, and an IHEEM President. He is pictured front, centre, in the top photograph, again on page 21 of the April 2018 HEJ.
“Sir John Charnley, the renowned orthopaedic surgeon who pioneered hip replacement surgery, was originally the orthopaedic surgeon at Park Hospital. He later moved to Wrightington Hospital in Wigan, where he worked closely with Hugh Howorth (another IHEEM Past- President), developing the Charnley- Howorth enclosure for hip replacement procedures.”
Having read with interest the April 2018
HEJ article on IHEEM’s early history, and in undertaking some initial ‘fact-finding’ on John Furness, Amos Millington said he had also discovered, among items in storage at his house, some interesting reminders of his own career, including a number of articles.
The cover of one of the ‘Basic Information Notes’,in this case addressing the operation and features of key boiler plant.
‘Equipment for the disabled’ One, entitled, ‘Equipment For the Disabled – A Works Contribution’, that he wrote in the early 1970s while working as Area Engineer for Salford Area Health Authority, describes his own and close colleagues’ work in the design of a variety of equipment for ‘disabled’ or ‘partially disabled’ people. He explains at the start: “It’s a pity that, as engineers employed at either District or Unit level, the opportunities to design equipment for the disabled or partially disabled are all too infrequent. Usually, such specialist equipment is readily available, and only requires involvement by the engineers to determine the mechanical and electrical
©Amos Millington
©Amos Millington
©Amos Millington
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