EBME Forums Forums Management Medical Equipment Management Assessing EBME dept competence

An inspector does not need to "up on current legislation".

He just needs to be able to inspect kit!

That is, for serviceability, safety, completeness and general condition.

He is a practical, hands-on guy ... not a lawyer, accountant, or worse!

I think in reality here Geoff, the person needs both skills as it is necessary to not only assess the status of the "kit" but also the record keeping, performance against current standards, performance against contract KPIs, etc, etc.

Although a lot can be told from the "kit" in reality, this is only a part (all be it a large part) of the picture.

What you say is fair enough ... but who's going to pay for all that? If you're not careful you could end up paying more for the "consultancy" than you do for the "maintenance" (or the real work, if you like)!

When it comes to checking the paperwork (and that all the boxes have been ticked) ... well, the Contracts Manager (client?) can do that. But if he (she) isn't a "technical person", then he (she) will need to call upon someone who can actually check-out the kit.

OK ... it was all "once upon a time" ... in a "place far, far away" ... but no-one ever said to me:- "can you please come and check our paperwork"? It was only ever "can you take a look at our equipment, and give us your 'opinion' (proposal, whatever)"?

They could prove compitance with cetificates from couses and or records of previous jobs done on certain equipment going back so many years to show that they are well versed on the equipment in question.

If they inspect a piece of equipment and it is not serviced correctly (and CQC inspections are hands on like you say, in some respects), they need to look at what we do to ensure that these are not recurring incidences. So you need to have the paper trails in place that give you assurance its all being done correctly and items arent being missed etc, and that service personnel are competent..

I would imagine that if you had random sampling that this would go a long way to checking technical personnel are doing it correctly. However I also read on here people keeping stats as to breakdowns and other stats for engineers, against national averages, and where its higher, it can be used to identify training requirements. Not sure how often such a system is used. Training certs seem to be inappropriate because engineers I guess build up general competencies that can cover a range of items which wouldn't be covered by certificates all the time?

Russ can you direct us to the appropriate legislation? I've had a look at the CQC website but it's quite hard to find the salient points.

BTW, we had a CQC visit earler this year, all the were interested in was whether we washed our hands or not!

Sounds like they're getting a handle on this "hands-on" thing, then!

It's outcome 11 on the judgement framework

http://www.cqc.org.uk/_db/_documents/Sum...INAL_081209.pdf

biomedbill - I wish they only asked about hand washing, I might be able to get some other work done!

Hi Russ,

Thanks for the link.

I'm sure the CQC looked at more than handwashing, but it was widely put round our organisation that any inspection would concentrate on cleanliness and infection control. I suspect that any inspection by the CQC would cover a fairly specific area depending on which way the political/ media wind is blowing. They wouldn't have the resources to inspect all aspects.

Back to medical equipment, the CQC document does not mention the most appropriate document, DB2006(05) . Have a look through this document, it should put you on the right track.

p.s. I'm not sure if this is the most up to date version, I'm sure someone out there will put us right.

You could start with what CQC want & NHSLA want for you to attain level 3. At least then you will know that they are doing something right as L3 is a shall we say bit of a pain to get and keep.