Thank you RoJo,
NAMDET is a very useful group that seeks to standardise Medical Device Training throughout the country. These groups have guest speakers at their meetings i.e NHSLA assesors, MHRA, Care Quality Commission, National Learning Management System.

The cost of medical devices to the NHS is £11.2 billion per annum and litigation relating to adverse events involving medical devices cost at least £12 million, with 70% of errors down to the users."

The London Region meeting of NAMDET will take place on the 28th April 2011 at Barts and City London Hospital, details are on the NAMDET website or you can PM

Don't worry, "lessons will be learned"!

And the other 30%? What are they due to, and how much litigation is involved there, I wonder?

The next London Group NAMDET Meeting will be held on Tuesday 19th July, from 2pm until 4pm.

The meeting will take place at the Homerton University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Community Health Services Division. In the Defoe Building, Hackney Community College, 50 Hoxton Street, London N1 6LP

Any Medical Device Trainers, coordinators etc are welcome to attend.

A representative from the MHRA will be delivering a short presentation on Single Use Medical Devices at The London Group meeting of NAMDET.

There is still confusion about the recognition of the symbol and what it means. Single Patient use/single use etc.

Details of this meeting are listed above.

If you cannot make it to this meeting, but would like to know details of other meetings, then please let me know.

The London Group meeting of NAMDET held their quarterly meeting today.

An excellent presentation on single use medical devices was completed by Mike Peel of the MHRA. This highlighted what is really happening at Trusts with regard to the use and reuse? of single use medical devices.

The future of the Medical Devices Driving Licence was also discussed and the salient points of the MDDL.

The time periods for refresher training on High, Medium and Low risk medical devices.

If you would like to view the minutes, they will be available on the NAMDET website soon. Please register with this valuable organisation to view them.

The next National Association for Medical Devices Educators and Trainers (NAMDET) meeting for the London region will take place at:

Date: 7th November 2011
Time: 14:00hrs
Location: Royal Free Hospital
Sheila Sherlock Education Centre
Pond Street
NW3 2QG

There will be two CQC compliance inspectors who will complete a presentation on the Health and Social Care Act Regulation 16 - Outcome 11, Safety Availability and Suitability of Equipment.

For further information please PM or register with NAMDET via the Training For Innovation (TFI)website. This site is a very useful tool for all Medical Device Trainers/Coordinators, clinical Risk, Governance etc.

Hi John,

I've sent you over a PM about the next meeting.

Can you get back to me when you get a chance.

Many thanks,

Hi Johnny John John

With respect to you observation that 70 % of the user errors are down to users ( which I agree with ) I would like to bring the following to your ( that’s all biomeds ) attention ( and I welcome comments)

A significant contributing factor to this high incidence of user errors can be directly attributed to biomeds undermining the technical competence gained by nursing staff trying to “fix” equipment . Hospital based biomeds are ideally suited to report details of user errors by make and department to clinicians so they can put mechanisms in place to address these very import alerts to user ability and competence ( or lack of it )

However I am not aware of any department in the world which has consistently done this over a period of years – we biomeds seem to be obsessed about tagging equipment rather than tackling life threating safety issues – see page 10 and 27 on this link http://www.courts.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/86755/cif-mcvey-os-20081128.pdf

The troubleshooting guide in the user manual has been designed to enable a competent user to deal with issues at the point of care – each and every time some one steps up to the plate to “fix” these user issues - everybody is better for it – fixing things or having a go is how we all learn – especially when getting to know a make and model ( if you have trained on PB840 it doesn’t make you a expert on a Drager or any other make)

Most clinicians expect to find clinical resources on the hospital intranet – the one missing resource is the medical equipment instructions and hence breaking the cycle of not referring to the user manual is an issue

However the good news is that I have solved this by creating a shared database of instruction manuals ( plus 20 000) which allow hospitals to ensure this information is available to all staff 24/7 – more than 200 hospitals use this ( UK and Australian ) (http://bioclinicalservices.com.au/) – other than my obvious commercial interest – my mission is to target the 5 to 15 % of technically competent clinicians and remove the hurdles they need to go through to change the culture of pushing something aside and assuming it’s the device and not their ability . We need more technical skills at the bedside – after hours , weekends – a hospital is a 24/7 machine – not a 9 to 5 biomed department

For those of you who have access to the following publication I can recommend you download this article

Use error: a nurse's perspective.Dumais MM; Biomedical Instrumentation & Technology, 2004 Jul-Aug; 38 (4): 313-5 (journal article) ISSN: 0899-8205 PMID: 15338839 CINAHL AN: 2005027964

Thanks for your time and I look forward to comments

Just to add to my post :

Page 12 of the following news letter gives you some idea of the scope and purpose of my mission http://www.ceti.nsw.gov.au/newsletters/w1/i1002809/

I agree with the thrust of what you're saying there, Mate.

There's far too much "tracking of mistakes"* rather than preventing them in the first place.

You're right about "9 to 5" as well. I've been saying for years that, as hospitals have become High-Tech Workplaces, they need (and deserve) 24x7 technical services.

I also applaud your proactive approach and creativity. Good work. But ... how much?

* We hear it all the time here:- "lessons shall be learned" ... blah, blah, blah. Yeah, right.