EBME Forums Forums Management Training Patients discharged with medical equipment

thanks geoff

alex

Alex thanks for your reply. But the question still remains. Whether 'training' and/or 'competency assessmment' are mandatorily required by the law or are they just a good practice? If this was not a grey area why would many of us still be in confusion about what we 'must' do and what we 'should' do?

Training and competency checks to show the training has been effective are required under CNST and I think you could be shown to be negligent and not fulfilling your duty of care if you did not give sufficient training.
I know of no actual law but I think that you could be liable to prosecution under general a general law if an incident occured.
Your Trust lawyers will be able to advise on specifics.
Robert

Thanks Robert! As far as I know, the CNST requires that all devices that require training be identified (5.1.5), training programmes be formulated (5.2.7) and finally all 'staff' operating the devices be trained (5.3.3).

Does this apply to patients/carers? Are you aware of any other sections or clauses in the CNST which mention about training and assessing patients/carers?

On a similar vein is it safe for the person using the volumetric pump.
To be the person trained. Also what about assessing a fit site for the use of the equipment e.g. a bed sit
And does anyone know what would happen to certain bits of equipment in a home environment?
I’m sure Mr D Gan** would have had to cross some of these bridges.

Has any Trust got a Policy on the Loan of Equipment to Patients ?

We have a Library Policy however this will be to cover for Patients at home ie Nebulisers, Nutrition Pumps, Pulse Oximeters, Nerve (TENS) Stimulators, CPAP Units and anything else that could be owned by the Trust and lent to them in their home.

Tasked with producing one for our Trust. Any help to: richard.steventon@rsh.nhs.uk

Many thanks

It might seem obvious but please ask the clinical staff to record the file or serial number of the equipment in the patient's record in case it is necessary to do a recall of a particular equipment! Anyone remember a particular CPAP with burning PSUs? We still can't find some of them!!