Paul,
The differences between Medical Physics and EBME are not just involving Medical Engineering/Equipment maintenance - Medical Physics Technicians work in a range of roles. At the moment the VRCT gives a significant number of EBME and Medical Physics Engineering Technicians the impression that they will be regulated along with the rest. The evidence I've seen, in the public domain, indicates that, as those involved in medical equipment maintenance, we could be paying our £10 for a good few years yet. Medical engineering technicians, boosting the numbers in the VRCT, will have helped to justify regulation of the rest if this is the case.
That is my concern - all I want is an indication of the time frame involved or at least an update - from anybody. It's likely that colleagues in Medical Physics will be regulated (those in diagnostic mesurments, R&D, etc), in the scenario I envisage. EBME technicians (the substantial majority employed in Medical equipment maintenance) and a significant proportion of those employed in medical equipment maintenance in Medical Physics (employed under "Medical Technology" rather than "Clincial Science" biased job roles) may not.
Another concern. That's why I raise the issue of "Medical Physics" versus "EBME". Not because I have a something against Medical Physics departments - I worked in both EBME and Medical Physics - no difference in what they do in terms of euipment maintenance (that, in part, is why I don't want discrepancies in the future resulting from how regulation is applied to groups of technicians performing similar job-roles in the NHS).
