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Unger hits the road
Unger distributors all over England and Wales are staging roadshow demonstrations. Dave Rogers, Unger UK’s general manager, and Matt Hodgkins, national sales manager, will be at 11 different distributors’ premises through July, August and September - full details are at www.ungerglobal.com/ukroadshow.
This is your chance to try Unger’s latest water-fed pole window- cleaning systems, complete with the versatile gooseneck system that will get your squeegee round corners and help your brush reach the bits that are unreachable.
Or, if litter-picking and tidying up the park is your bag, the new Unger litter-picking environmental system - the Nifty Nabber Bagger - will be there to play with.
Choose between Chipperfield, Stockport, Sheffield, Bodmin, Barry Docks, Taunton, Rainham and Worthing - and there’s no need to book.
AHCP launches award for ‘healthier healthcare cleaners’
The Association of Healthcare Cleaning Professionals (AHCP) has confirmed details of its new President's Award. For 2010/11 the award will be given for improving the health and well being of cleaning staff - making healthier healthcare cleaners.
The AHCP President's Award focusses on developing the skills and well being of healthcare cleaners - an area which has, until now, not received a high level of attention. The new award was announced recently by AHCP president Dr. Liz Jones at the association's annual conference in Bristol. It showcases, acknowledges and rewards action and achievement in a field selected each year by the association's president.
The 2010/11 theme of improving health and well being - making healthier healthcare cleaners - stems from sessions entitled 'Caring for ourselves' at the AHCP's recent national conference. Areas planned for future awards could include raising individual skill levels in areas such as communications and IT or developing team building and leadership skills.
Healthy staff are vital to any organisation. Patients need healthy staff to treat them and this means cleaners as well as doctors and nurses. Managers have a key role in promoting the health of their staff and the President's Award challenges service managers to take action. There are many ways this can be done. Examples given include implementing health screening and exercise programmes, healthy eating schemes and smoking cessation campaigns.
Any initiative to improve the health of cleaners working in the NHS is eligible for entry and all staff delivering cleaning services or involved in promoting health in the NHS can enter. Those who are not members of the AHCP will be encouraged to join but are not compelled to do so in order to participate. Projects should have been set up within the last two years but older ones are still eligible provided activities are on-going. Entries need not be targeted exclusively at cleaning staff, but should show clearly how cleaning staff are involved and demonstrate what the benefits to cleaners are.
The initial selection process will take place at AHCP regional level and branch winners will receive full day workshops on presentation skills. Winning team members will receive funded places at the AHCP Annual Conference, where finalists will make presentations before the announcement of a winner or winning team. In addition to the award, the winning entry will receive funding to develop the project further, as well as prizes for team members.
Applications are invited now and the selection process will be on- going during 2010 with the first award due to be given at Annual Conference 2011.
www.ahcp.co.uk
Connaught wins 2nd RoSPA award
Connaught plc’s commitment to safety and operational performance was confirmed when it won the RoSPA Forestry Sector award for the second year in succession. Connaught Environmental Ltd has an outstanding safety performance record, formally recognised by RoSPA for the first time last year.
Richard Haddon, Connaught Environmental Ltd chief executive, said: “It was great to receive this prestigious award in 2009, but it is even better that the determination and effort of our staff to maintain and exceed excellent standards has been rewarded with another win in 2010. It is also a testimony to the support and encouragement of our customers and stakeholders and a great all round team performance.”
The RoSPA Awards are not just about reducing the number of accidents and cases of ill-health at work, they help to ensure that organisations have good health and safety management systems in place.
Competitive awards go to the best entries in 23 individual industry sectors with Connaught Environmental Ltd winning the award for the Forestry sector, which covers forestry, arboricultural and grounds maintenance work.
www.connaught.plc.uk
Sweet success for steam
The New McCowan's (Scotland) Ltd, incorporating John Millar and Sons of Edinburgh, and McCowan’s of Stenhousemuir is an independent manufacturer of traditional sweets and confectionery for all ages and occasions.
One of the problems associated with being a major confectionary manufacturer is dealing with the clean-up of the many constituents of these sweets, including machine-clogging glucose and sugar. Sticky residues on production machinery are hard to shift and although the company has used many methods over the years to remove them, each is rather tedious and difficult, especially as cooled sugars tend to harden.
Cleaning also causes a significant loss in production, as not only does the machinery have to be shut down for safety reasons, but as cleaning is manual, it takes quite some time to achieve the high standards acceptable before the machines can be started up again.
Enter the new distributor in Scotland for OspreyDeepclean steam cleaning machines - Fife-based Cleaning Systems UK.
Following a site visit and evaluation of the problem, an OspreyDeepclean Vega Plus dry steam cleaning machine was recommended and successfully demonstrated on the production line.
Since the Vega Plus was purchased the company has found that dry steam cleaning is much quicker, easier, and far more effective than manual methods, with machines being brought back into production sooner than ever before.
Generating dry steam heated to 180 degrees C, which is applied under constant 8 bar pressure, the Vega Plus quickly dissolves sticky residues which if not fully vaporised by the steam are quickly vacuumed into the waste tank for later disposal. The on-board 1200-watt wet and dry vacuum may be used independently to the steam cleaning process.
Not only production machinery, but any floor and wall spaces can be cleaned and, due to the high temperatures involved, also sanitised. The Vega Plus also has the facility to add chemicals, rust inhibitors or detergent to the dry steam at the point of use - an advantage in many industrial applications and for extra grease removing power if this is required. The operator controls the additives by means of a separate switch provided on the handle.
There is also a digital control panel for more precise settings and thus optimum operator control. With few surface-mounted knobs and indicator lights on its stainless steel body, the Vega Plus is itself easier to keep clean.
“This sale was one of our first in steam cleaning machines,” says Craig Manson, sales director at Cleaning Systems UK. “We had every confidence in this application as the contracting side of our business has also used these machines elsewhere to great success.”
James Buist, general manager at The New McCowan's (Scotland) Ltd, said: “There is no doubt that the steam cleaning approach to the endemic problem for a confectioner of removing sticky residues from machinery and other surfaces has brought huge time-saving and production benefits to our factory. It also makes a major contribution to hygiene levels which we take very seriously here.”
The company has since ordered a second Vega Plus.
www.ospreydc.com
Full steam ahead for MITIE
MITIE has won a cleaning contract with First Great Western (FGW) to clean trains and stations. The new cleaning contract covers 109 train stations across the country from Paddington in London to Penzance in Cornwall.
The three-year cleaning contract, with a total value of £12.6 million, started in late April 2010 with approximately 300 people transferring to MITIE. The contract consists of four lots, West, Central and East regions for FGW and will mainly revolve around train and station cleaning while Paddington and Old Oak Common in London will predominantly deliver train cleaning.
Johan Venter, managing director of MITIE's transport cleaning business, said: "We are delighted to be working with such a prestigious company as First Great Western. MITIE has a great track record of working with blue chip organisations in the transport sector and we regard this as a vote of confidence in our abilities. We are looking forward to developing a long-term partnership with First Great Western."
www.mitie.com
Hygiene Group extends Morrison’s partnership
The acquisition of Somerfield by Morrison’s has brought additional work worth around £50,000 each year to Birmingham-based Hygiene Group.
Hygiene Group is already an established provider of overnight deep cleaning of food preparation areas within 65 Morrison’s stores in southern England. It will now provide a similar service to a further 33 Somerfield stores as part of the same contract.
The arrangement sees two dedicated teams from Hygiene Group undertake thorough cleaning of bakery, butchery and fishmongery areas within around 10 different stores each week, complementing existing day-to- day in-house cleaning regimes.
Gurdip Bir of Hygiene Group said: “We are delighted to be expanding our operations for Morrison’s with the addition of a group of Somerfield stores to those which we already clean. We have consistently shown an ability to maintain optimal standards while reducing costs, which has been key to our long-term partnership with Morrison’s.”
www.hygiene.co.uk
