One of the most important issues with pendants relates to the medical gas hoses installed in the arms. One manufacturer, who shall remain anonymous, has supplied over 100 pendants for a Scottish hospital refurbishment. The medical gas hoses cannot be removed from the pendant without cutting the gas specific connector off the end! These hoses should be changed every 5 years following a recent MHRA investigation and safety bulletin. Therefore, every 5 years a phamacist will have to be brought in to do cross-connection checks and the hose connectors will have to be crimped on site. I suggest that you get the supplier to put it in writing that their hoses can be removed with the need to cut off the non-interchangeable screw thread connectors. Also, some German suppliers use clear hoses, which are not colour coded as specified in BS EN 739.
The major manufacturers are all German, with the exception of ALM (French) I think. ALM are part of the Getinge group and supply Heraeus pendants into the UK market. MEDÆS are no longer part of Hill-Rom, but they do supply pendants with easy to remove hoses. Hill-Rom do not own Trumpf-Kreuzer.
Regarding specifications for pendants, all manufactuers can supply just about anything you want, and all prices are fairly similar. The service you get may vary a lot between suppliers, and you should satisfy yourself that the company has a large enough presence in the UK to provide you the service you need. Also, training for ITU and theatre staff should be included in the package. I would expect most pendant systems installed are never moved because the staff have not be been shown how flexible the pendants can be, in terms of creating customised environments for each individual patient and the equipment needed for them.
So long as you use a competent medical gas installer for the pendant system, minimum leak connectors are supplied to connect the pendant brake system to the medical/surgical air supply. This enables maintenance to be carried out on the brake system without having to shut off the medical or surgical air supply.
Ben.
