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What couriers do you use if you are NHS based.
Also do they accept frequency variance and have no minimum quantity p/month.
What insurance do they offer as standard or chargeable?

We use Interlink at Hereford.
No problem with ad hoc service, standard liability is £12 per kg but we routinely use their extended liability which covers up to £15,000 which is chargeable.
So far (many years) they never let us down. We use a local no. but you should be able to get info. on 08702 200 300.

Lee

Interlink here, aslo.
Reason = insurance/liability option

Food for thought

We had an incident a few years ago with an expensive piece of test kit sent for calibration - it arrived at its destination but was left on the shelf for a couple of days before being calibrated. Upon opening the externally undamaged box the equipment was found to have suffered from a drop that had damaged some of the pcbs internally. Because an insurance claim was made outside the 48 hour time limit we ended up with a reasonable bill which was shared with the service organisation.

Moral: We can only assume the equipment has delivered safely if it has been thoroughly inspected - internally in this case!

A previous organisation I worked for insisted that anybody that signed for a parcel wrote "unchecked" next to their signature.

Lee

"unchecked" "without examination" has no legal bearing.
What you sign for is the actual package. It is therfore important to check the contents as soon as possible so that a claim can be made if necessary.

"unchecked" "without examination" may have no legal bearing, however the couriers paperwork very often states that the package has been recieved in good order (or similar) and you are signing this paperwork.

Lee

No doubt, and sadly, this won't come as much of a surprise to many.

Some years ago I took receipt of a "priceless" retro computer (complete with rare add-ons, special ROM boards etc. - no doubt you know the sort of thing). Needless to say, it arrived in bits, and beyond salvage, let alone repair. Damage like that could only have been caused by some malicious [censored] kicking it about, and I know for sure that the seller packed it as well as he possibly could have. How many times have I wished since that I had driven down to pick it up (as I often used to)?

Some of the Dark Side biomed companies I know use a trusted individual; an independent van driver. Guys like that may not always be readily available (one I know of often travels across the Channel), but at least you know that the guy gives a [censored] - and who to have a go at should a customer receive a rattling box of junk!

We had a bit of kit go missing when sending it back to the manufacturer for repair. The courier had records of it booked in to their depot but then the trail went cold. They admitted that they had lost it but as we had not taken out insurance at a huge cost - tough luck us.
Everyone assumed that as the courier had admitted it was their fault then they should pay up.

Moral - check the small print.

Robert

"Lost it"? The word is stolen.

Like many of my generation, I was brought up to assume the best in people.

However, my (now) many decades of experience has tended to confirm what I had suspected all along ...

Moral - don't trust (or rely on) anyone, but count yourself lucky when folk don't let you down.