No so long ago, for us to service PCT equipment required us to have in place an approved ISO system. This was true of private contractors as well as NHS EBME departments. the PCT was then satified that we were woking to a set of standards.We were advised on the contents of our ISO documentation by a consultant who is an expert in these matters. He recommended that it is only necessary to have one of each item calibrated to National Standards and this item must be used when calibrating medical equipment. Other test equipment can continue to used, but not for calibration.

Like John, I notice that Geoff tries his best to give honest NHS workers a bad time. All we do is to maintain a quality standard that has been legislated by the government.

From Part 1 of your post we seem to be in broad agreement there, Graham.

Not so sure about Part 2, though.

I always like to give everyone a fair go, Mate ... and you have been kind to me in the past. But three points if I may:-

1) Any comments I may record vis-à-vis practices in the NHS (nota bene not the "workers" themselves) are based on my personal observations over recent years (not to mention over 35 years of involvement with "practices" elsewhere spanning from "Best" to ... er, "Worst")!

2) Remember (as I never tire of mentioning) there is a Whole World of Biomed outside the British government health services. Many techs come here (on the forum) looking for clues, tip and advise in general ... and probably don't know anything (or couldn't care less) about the NHS.

3) Yes, I acknowledge the "guidelines" spewed out by government. But as far as I am aware, it is not always "legislation". Some of what goes on is (IMHO) only done for, shall we say, traditional (and/or CYA) reasons.

Over the pond here in Canada test equipment must be sent once per year for cal and testing by labs that have the NIST designation. www.nist.gov/index.html.
I do not like the idea of a reference unit being held in a closet. My experience has been that cals can and will drift even if the unit is not being used.
It depends on the piece of equipment. A hemodialysis machine for example would definately drift.

Does NIST exist in the UK? If not is there a similar type organization?

I don't think that is very fair, Geoff gives everyone a bad time not just the NHS folk

Now, back to the matter at hand.

Calibration of all test equipment is essential and, in this part of the world anyway, it is required that the test/cal be done by a certified testing agency (in Oz that NATA certified). The one thing that can however be varied is the frequency of that calibration. Once again however, this comes back to our old friend, a "risk based approach".
As an example of this a maker of electrical safety testers here (MEM) recently changed their recommendation from yearly to two yearly as it was found that this was quite sufficient and did not affect the reliability of the testing done.

Yes, although Bong's original post was headed up "Test Equipment Calibration", he then went on to talk about Patient Monitors in cupboards. Which is not a good idea.

I have given a "dissertation" about the calibration of test kit before (but lack the time, and frankly the inclination, to look it up again now). In short, if you're not careful, it ends up being yet another money making opportunity - for the calibration lab, that is - "calibrating" thousands of items every year which weren't "out of cal" in the first place. Then shipping them back to you (how? when?) in possibly a worse "state of cal" than they were in when you sent them off!

As I have said before, be thoughtful about what you send away, then refer other items (of test equipment) to the ones that have been "certified".

If you use your test kit often and regularly (and don't have too much of it - enough is enough) you will get to know which ones you can trust, and depend upon (hopefully, all of it). Once again, Rocket Science it ain't!

Hi Rug, the standards are maintained by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), and organisations that test to these standards are accredited by UKAS.

My understanding from the comments here then is that some of us have the freedom to use a risk based/common sense approach, others have to provide the all important "piece of paper".

What we have in common is that everyone, at some time, has to send one or more pieces of kit away to be calibrated.

The "gems" i was looking for in my first post were those companies that we have found and prefer to use, and the reason why...... whichever part of the world we live in.... hopefully many of us may save some money in this way.

So, as a starter.. Having just had need to find a calibration agent for half a dozen items, my nomination would go to ServiceCal in Manchester.

Jolly good. Care to share with us ... why that is so?

Meanwhile ... let's have some more nominations (from others). I have found in the past that cal labs "come and go", as it were. Our lists need updating.

And ... who does what! What about my old RT-200, for instance? And who does the Datrend Infutest, and the IDA series of pump testers? What about the Bender 601 safety tester (yes, the list is seemingly endless).

Does anyone get ECG simulators calibrated? Where (and why)?

Also ... I would phrase the thing somewhat differently:-

Some of us have the freedom to use a risk based/common sense approach ... backed up by appropriate "pieces of paper"!

When you go down the road of accreditation, then everything will have 'a piece of paper' if an accident/incident occurs then the paper chase will begin to find the cause. If your paperwork is all in order then nothing to worry about.

The risk based approach is probably the best system - with 1 caveat - you have enough evidence to back up your final calibration schedule.

As long as nothing goes wrong it will never be questioned, but if an unfortunate incident does occur, you would be hard pushed explain why you changed the calibration frequency from the manufacturers recommendations without this evidence.

Lets face it, the only reason most things are checked annually is because it is easier to manage.But in this silicon era, we let computers do the hard work for us....

With reference to the calibration of ecg simulators, they should be calibrated. Why - check this link out :
http://www.anaesthetist.com/icu/organs/heart/ecg/Findex.htm

If you do not know what signal you are putting in, how do you know you are getting the correct signal out!

We use 3 main suppliers being
Utramedic.
CalCom.
&
Gauges North West Ltd.
All 3 provide an excellent service for the kit we send them.
The later will do the RT200 and issue a cert.
Apart from the previous discussions above I've also found that a lot of OEM courses state that you use a calibrated tester somewhere in the service / repair procedures. If you dont know the tester is within cal how can you set anything on the kit you are calibrating.
Then again the british standard calibrated thumb for presuures and temp is a good alternative. The ear version being useful for breathe rates and flow patterns.