Shropshire hospital team achieves highest standards
The team responsible for managing thousands of medical devices at Shropshire's two main hospitals has been honoured for its work.
Members of the medical engineering department, based at the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford and Royal Shrewsbury Hospital, have been presented with a certificate for achieving the highest standards in their profession.
The team at The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (Sath) has been certified for achieving an internationally agreed standard that sets out the requirements for a quality management system specific to medical devices.
Nigel Watkinson, medical engineering services manager at Sath, said: “The certification gives assurances to our colleagues and customers of our commitment to quality and continual improvement.
“We went through two days of external auditing at both hospitals, and I am really proud of our teams for the way they demonstrated the trust’s values every day to ensure we provide the very best service possible.
“And the fact that the entire quality system and manuals have been internally developed, and are managed by our in-house team, means we are prouder than ever with this latest achievement.”
In medical engineering, the teams at Sath use their expertise in electronic or mechanical engineering to ensure the trust’s medical equipment is working properly and is safe to use, for example blood pressure and heart rate monitors.
Nigel added: “This is a very satisfying role for an engineer as you contribute to saving the lives of our patients.”
The medical engineering department is responsible for the management of more than 30,000 medical devices.
The team completed over 25,000 device maintenance tasks in 2018.
The department has a combined total of 400 years medical engineering experience and over 80 years of technical training.
It also provides equipment management services to 13,000 devices for external NHS and private healthcare providers.
