Below are this week’s key messages from the national NHS Estates & Facilities Team. Please email any questions or comments you have on any of these items to: [email protected] or follow the links where provided.
Second annual NHS Estates and Facilities Forum
Arrangements are underway for the second annual Estates and Facilities Forum. This will take place online on Wednesday, March 16, 2022.
The event is open to all NHS estates and facilities directors and senior managers. It will be a closed event, operating under the Chatham House rule, to ensure open and useful discussion.
There is a wide ranging agenda in place for the event which includes key updates from Edward Argar MP (Minister of State for Health), Jacqui Rock (Chief Commercial Officer), Simon Corben (National Director of NHS Estates and Facilities), Morag Stuart (New Hospital Programme), Ruth May (Chief Nursing Officer) and Fiona Daly (National Sustainability and Workforce Lead). There will also be a number of breakout sessions focussing on: Great Food, Good Health Programme; NHS Net Zero Carbon; NHS Capital Investment; and Estates Strategies.
You can find out more, view the outline agenda, and register via the Estates and Facilities Collaboration Hub.
Living with COVID-19
Following the announcement of the Prime Minister’s plan for living with COVID-19, NHS England and NHS Improvement (NHSE/I) has published a letter detailing what this means for NHS staff, including the areas which are being reviewed and which could be subject to change and elements which will remain unchanged.
NHS staff who do test positive for COVID-19 should not attend work until they have had two negative LFD tests taken 24 hours apart. The first test should not be taken until day five following the initial positive test result.
The letter from NHSE/I is here.
Support for our NHS Staff
NHS England and NHS Improvement has recently published details of the support available to healthcare staff, including the estates and facilities community. This covers a diverse range of areas, such as supporting colleagues with long-Covid, safe and effective wellbeing conversations, and physical health and wellbeing. It is important that colleagues are supported to access these resources wherever appropriate. The information and resources are available via this link.
NHS England and NHS Improvement: National Retention Team (Campaign)
The National Retention Team is still looking for case studies of estates and facilities staff to feature in a retention campaign aimed at NHS staff aged over 50. Find out more and get involved.
Trial of Relaunched Edward Jenner Programme
We are running a trial of the relaunched Edward Jenner programme for estates and facilities staff who are moving into their first management/leadership role, starting on March 7, 2022. We are looking for NHS Trusts to nominate staff to be part of the trial and join our Project Group.
Find out more about the programme here or e-mail: [email protected].
Public Switched Telephone Network – service closure
The traditional landline telephone network in the UK, the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), is coming to the end of its life and is gradually being replaced. BT has announced its intention to retire this network by December 2025, with other providers expected to follow a similar timescale. Further information on this is available from the NHS Estates Collaboration Hub.
NHS Trusts: Estates and Facilities (Hard and Soft FM Contacts)
We are reviewing our central contacts list and are looking to update specific contacts relevant to the Hard and Soft FM areas. We will be contacting Directors of E&F for these details in the near future. Contact Tom McHugh for further details at: [email protected].
Technical Standards and Guidance Programme: Surveys
We recently requested views via the NHS Estates Collaboration Hub regarding: the guidance documents which should be prioritised for update and whether any additional guidance may be required; and Health Building Note 00-12 Refurbishments - re-use of existing buildings for healthcare services, successful delivery of a refurbishment project that could be shared further.
The surveys have now closed. We would like to thank those members of the E&F profession who completed the survey and provided some very useful information.
Case studies
We are currently reviewing all areas of the NHS Estates Collaboration Hub, both the format in some areas as well as the general content. This includes the case studies area. As part of this process we would welcome some additional content. If you have
successfully delivered an estates and facilities related project that could offer fellow E&F teams further insight into best practice and shared learning then we would like to hear from you. If you are interested then please see the Hub for further details and the required template. Alternatively, contact: [email protected], marking for the attention of Joy Heaps and Tom McHugh.
Mailboxes – new e-mail addresses
The e-mail addresses for both the National Estates and Facilities Team and the NHS Estates Collaboration Hub have been updated as follows:
National Webinars
Look out for our schedule of estates and facilities National Webinars, which we will be releasing via the NHS Collaboration Hub shortly.
Recordings of the Covid-related webinars from early January, along with the FAQ documents are available from the NHS Collaboration Hub now. Recordings and FAQ documents from other webinars hosted in January will be available from the Hub in the near future.
NHS Estates and Facilities Team – Monthly Bulletin
The next edition of the monthly Estates and Facilities bulletin is due to be issued in the next week. This provides updates directly from NHS England and NHS Improvement’s Estates and Facilities Team including the latest guidance, health technical memoranda and policy developments affecting your work, as well as celebrating the successes of the wider E&F community. NHS staff can register to receive future editions of the newsletter.
NHS England and NHS Improvement National Estates Team: Collaboration Hub
The Collaboration Hub is a protected space for local NHS estates and facilities teams to access key information as well as to collaborate and to share ideas and successes. Access to the Collaboration Hub for individuals from local NHS estates teams can be arranged by e-mailing: [email protected]
We have been arranging masterclasses to help registered members understand and navigate the Hub more effectively. If you are interested in attending one of these sessions then please e-mail the above mailbox.
If your e-mail address has changed over the past year (perhaps to .nhs.net), or you have moved to another NHS Trust then please e-mail us with the details ([email protected]) so that we can update our records.
You can also follow our latest news and updates on the NHS Estates and Facilities LinkedIn page.
