Hi there,
I'm a 2nd year student at Eastwood Park and work in an ebme dept in East Anglia region.
My question is whats your view as engineers on the DB2006 (05)?
I have my own views but am most interested in hearing what actually EBME engineers think of it.
e.g do you believe that it is comprehensive enough to help, or sufficient to run an ebme department with the information it provides?
Do you believe it is out dated and needs an engineers touch?
Or with todays NHS value for money attitude and hospital cuts may be effecting the quality of NHS service the MHRA are enforcing?

Welcome to the forum.

DB2006(05) is an official (UK government) document that gives guidance. As far as I'm aware, it does not have any legal compulsion to enforce compliance. We older techs will recall a succession of similar weak "guidelines" over the years. This one, deficient as it may appear, is in fact the best we have seen (believe it or not).

In this risk-adverse, Health & Safety obsessed country of ours, I have always thought:- what's the point of having all these Rules and Regulations, Standards, Guidelines, Targets (and boxes to tick ... etc.) unless they are enforced?

Perhaps your next question could now be:- "Who is following DB2006(05)? And if not, why not"?




I don't see it as a guide "How to Run a Biomed Department", but rather aimed at general management within the NHS as a whole. A policy document, if you like, from which others may be based, and elaborate upon.

However, it is not particularly well-written. So if you want to have a go at re-writing it, I'm sure that such effort would be well *rewarded!

Personally, I would be interested in hearing about any specific criticisms you may have (and no, in case you're wondering, I didn't have a hand in drafting it).

Let's take a look at what's been said before:-

1) One
2) Two
3) Three

Meanwhile ... MHRA enforcing? Now you are having a laugh!

* By being quietly binned ... er, I mean "filed away".

hi and thank you,

Your response is very helpful, the links provided do reflect some of my own opinions and thoughts. I am glad I'm not alone, as others I spoken to on my course beleive the Device Bulletin to be gospel. I understand that it is credible and resourceful for any NHS organisation. But I have thought in areas of the document change is needed as time has moved on and any areas that could be improved would have been spotted, followed up by an update.
Many will say 'if it ain't broken don't fix it'... well the same could be said about medical equipment, take PPM schedules for an example 3, 6, 12 months or more are usually whats on most NHS systems because of past records indicate they were in need. Now with the advances in technology newer infusion pumps need only to be seen every 2 years at the least ( so say manufacturers Fresenius Cabi, Cardinal Health) but my ebme department won't risk it and will PPM them annually. Althoough according to our database we haven't had any major inciddents, or failures/ repairs with either of the two over the past three years. The ebme department are sticking to the guidelines that have been written almost 6 years ago and won't budge until another hospital ebme department does first.
I can't help but think its a little crazy. I mean why collect all this data and not use it rather than respect its there and then forget about it.

How about:- "If it ain't broke, you ain't pushin' it hard enough"!

Regarding your course mates ... there will always be those who acquiesce and simply follow, happy to just do as they're told. Not everyone has the enthusiasm, the inclination, or indeed the capability, to be a pioneer or innovator.

With respect to your comments about PM, those intervals you mention will have (most likely) been cast in stone because that's what the manufacturers recommended. Pperhaps you need to take a look at Risk-Based PM.

It's interesting about your perspective, though. You're talking about stuff written six years ago. Some of us on here are looking back over almost forty years! Also, I doubt that you'll find many NHS biomed sheds that have default PM intervals of less than twelve months (apart from the odd ventilator, and stuff like that). Indeed, I know of some places where they do not have any PM schedule worthy of the name, at all.

In my own experiences overseas I always plumped for 6-months across the board at first. After that (if it could actually be achieved, and once all the kit had been brought under control) I would start thinking about adjusting the intervals. To be honest, I rarely got around to adjusting them. Why?:-

1) Struggled to implement the programme in the first place
2) Fire-fighting ... like everyone else!
3) An insufficient period of time* in which to experiment with PM intervals

On second thoughts:- "If it ain't broke, fix it 'till it is"! Ha, ha.

* Within those short-term contracts.

In case anyone is unduly worried (?) - and about to "jump all over me" - my own preferred maxim is:-

"If it ain't broke, find something that is, and fix it"!