EBME Forums Forums Free discussion Free discussion Lack of NHS Engineers is putting lives at risk?

Linky thing:

Institution of Mechanical Engineers Report

Interesting report!, (in conjunction with national press release today).

Page 8 summarises the problem in a nutshell, though the solutions and recommendations proposed at the end of the document don’t really address the issue, (in my view).

Any recommendations from the floor?

Sensational Attention Grabbing Headline?
In 2013 over 13,000 incidents were reported to the UK regulator relating to faulty medical equipment, which led to over 300 deaths and almost 5,000 serious injuries.
Having read the report, should we insert "were initially reported" as relating to faulty medical equipment. How many of these faulty medical equipment reports were ultimately determined as being caused by clinical user error, clinical training issues, maladministration etc.? It is all too easy to blame the medical equipment, when an investigation reveals it to be performing in line with specification. (This happens with alarming regularity). Is such an assertion fairly typical in this field?

How many of these reported faulty medical equipment deaths were due to the "Rogue Unregistered Biomedical Engineer" improperly calibrating or validating medical equipment?, or in fact due to any NHS (or other) Biomedical Engineer? (or in fact, the lack of one).
When scrutinising the reference section, the MHRA is not even mentioned, so where do these figures come from?

Echoes of the Patient Safety Campaign? which made a number of bold assertions, which when scrutinised, could not be supported with facts.
If I could just find a shroud waving posting icon....

I'm always impressed when I can find an article about Biomeds on the Google News page.

Agree with what you've said, no meat on the bone. At least it's highlighted an issue we all no exists and is going to be more prevalent as we all "fade and die".

Also agree with you on the old "13,000 incidents ..." approach to not correctly identifying the true cause of errors.

Can't help you with a shroud waving icon, may I suggest a new mobile phone ... its bound to have one on

A bunch of "academics" looking for funding for their next "research project"?

Having had a quick glance at the report cited (nice pictures) - I might find time to go through it again later - I noticed this at the Conclusions:-


Eh? What have I (and many others) been up to these last forty years, then?

Maybe they're really talking about "bio-engineering" - rather than the (good old) "medical equipment repairman".

Sorry Sean, but I'm calling Red Herring on this one. "Nothing to see here; move along ...".

Sean, I am unregistered, does that make me a 'Rogue'. Like Geoff I have been doing this job over 30 years (not quite 40 yet)and I cannot recall one incident relating to equipment that I or the teams that I have worked with, that has caused harm or death to a patient or operator.

Times have changed since 30 years ago, In your case as you are working in arabia you could be summoned to the Sharia court. I believe in arabia neligence claims are on the increase....

Registered for what?
In my years of dealing with incidents with medical equipment. Almost all of them are caused by nursing staff who are fully registered and qualified.

Interesting that the NHS will likely have to formally respond to this, whether it be via an FOI request for a NHS England / MHRA request. Perhaps we have already been asked to respond......

Like we all say, there are many ways of presenting information to stimulate a desired response.

What is lacking is a true perspective, when you get down to the nitty gritty so to speak i feel that the underlying reasons would never be solved by the proposals outlined in the document.