Within the next 5 years, 50%(5)of the technicians in our dept will have retired.

Cheers
Mark

Mark,
I assume you want to start a discussion on this?
I think you will find we are all in the same boat, no one wants to do the job.
I read somewhere that there is national recognition that the sciences (whatever you want to call us,but we where in the group mentioned)is going to have increased problems recruiting in the next 10 - 15 years.
One can only hope that the present trend for everyone to leave school and do degrees in IT&M or software subjects comes to an end. And that young people find the interest in actually fixing things again.
Maybe we need to start giving our kids Leggo & Mechanno again instead of playstations.

KM - tend to agree about taking away playstations.

We have 2 apprentices at the moment - seems to be working well - it is important that you get the right guys/gals though.

Mick

Many NHS biomed shops that I have seen appear to be in a state of either stagnation or suspended animation. Many are not what you might call dynamic. What is needed is, shall we say, fresh blood. Frankly, I see a lot of old chaps shuffling around waiting for their pensions (…not necessarily thinking of Taunton here, Mark). Well, let the old dears move on, and let’s get some contractors in! And before someone says that contractors will have the same problem (ie, can’t get the blokes), I’d say that private companies have ways of motivating people that large public organizations like the NHS are simply not able to (or, at least, seem unwilling to do).

Anyway, Mates, we’ve been here before, have we not?

The trouble is, do we know what the future holds for our trade.
If we are only needed to; board swap, calibrate, PAT test and commission stuff... bye bye band 6. Bye bye the job as we know it. If this is the case, highly educated and highly skilled people need not apply.

Cheers
Mark

It’s being going on for years, Mark, as technology evolves. Just imagine what your day would be like, with all that kit within your domain, if it was still like the good old stuff of the 1970’s (back in those days, you would have been “lucky” to have three ECG monitors in the whole hospital)! How many guys would you need then (ie, with the size of your inventory as it is today), and what time would you get home at night? In my travels, I don’t come across many guys who would be willing to regularly work until ten at night (as we used to do back then). For the likes of me, situations like yours would not appeal (but that’s why I don’t work in the NHS). But at the end of the day, Mate, if things are not to your liking, don’t forget there’s a whole world outside of Taunton! Always take the future, as against the past.

The electronics is more reliable than ever although every product seems to have some predictable pattern of failure. The stuff I see coming in for repair is faulty due to wear and tear on mechanical components or batteries, damage due to operator abuse, or it requires routine calibration.

I used to spend a lot of time fault-finding to component level and disassembling poorly designed equipment but better manufacture and design has reduced this problem. I see more complex systems with multiple sub-systems as the components not the electronic components themselves.

As someone involved in maintenance I think this is a good thing since there's that much equipment out there these days that we'd been even more inundated with faulty equipment than we are now. There's plenty of work to do on a range of devices and little time to fault-find to component.

The bias is now towards improving the availability or uptime to the operators, ensuring they have equipment when they need it, that they're purchasing appropriately, using it correctly and are assisted with such things as accessories and consumables, perhaps training and risk related.

As long as we're useful to the operators and prepared to respond we're always going to be needed to give technical support in clincial areas thus weed out "finger-trouble", basic technical problems in-situ as problems occur, and other clinically related issues, as Geoff implies customer facing.

I would say that Richard’s post (above) nicely summarizes the current state of play (ie, at first-line in UK hospitals). If anyone still wants to know what the job is … well, that’s it. As regards the future, I would expect it to be very similar to the present state of affairs, but with increasing emphasis on directly supporting the users (and, yes, alas a dwindling need for repairs and maintenance of the old-fashioned type).

Better re-read Richard’s last paragraph (ie, the job will always be there, as some sort of immediate technical support will always be needed). If a tech, young or old, doesn’t really see himself (herself) in this “hand-holding” role, perhaps it’s time to look elsewhere (as I have done) for a place to hook up the soldering iron and lay out the spanners!

The problem is that there is no career progression along with the fact that training is non existant. Is it any wonder no-one wants to join this profession.

I believe I recognise that negative tone (pun intended, of course). Dead-man's shoes, perhaps, but you'll be the manager one day, believe me! I wouldn't say that no-one wants to join the "profession", though. It's a matter of identifying, and then bringing-on (developing) the right sort of people (just look at your own case, for example). You don't want just any old wally at it, do you? Don't you remember what I taught you about leadership and group dynamics? Keep the faith, Matey (how's this year's budget looking, by the way ... any chance of a couple of months during the summer?).