TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT Insight
ENGINEERING GOVERNANCE (DECONTAMINATION): IHEEM TECHNICAL PLATFORM ACTIVITY AND NHS WALES PILOT STUDY
Updates on IHEEM’s Decontamination Technical Platform, as well as an NHS Wales pilot study
W
ork is ongoing to strengthen the role, accountability, and importance of
engineers working within the medical device decontamination field. In late 2021, concerns were first noted around an emerging void in experienced engineers as they left the industry. The reality of incoming engineers often not having the traditional trade backgrounds or experience, coupled with significant concerns about national skill shortages experienced across all healthcare sectors, results in failures to comply with increasing governance requirements and, ultimately, a poor response to service needs, in terms of maintaining, servicing, or validating equipment. Members of the IHEEM Decontamination Platform, including Chair and AE(D) Registration Board Chair, Brian Kirk, and John Prendergast, an IHEEM-registered AE(D), and Senior Decontamination Engineer within NHS Wales Shared Services/Specialist Estates Services, met training provider, Eastwood Park, to discuss a proactive solution to these issues. Developments have since led to a pilot study,
instigated and promoted by John Prendergast in collaboration with the Decontamination section within NHS Wales Shared Services/ Specialist Estates Services (NWSSP/SES), Health Board teams across Wales, and colleagues within the IHEEM Decontamination Technical Platform. Progression is evident, not only in Wales, but also across other areas within the UK, with each area developing at varying speeds. The key to the process was to identify where improvements could be made. NWSSP/ SES takes on Authorising Engineers across engineering disciplines within NHS Wales, with examples of good work having always been evident across the whole of the UK. It is acknowledged that Northern Ireland and Scotland have led the way in managing AP(D)s
18 Health Estate Journal August 2024
and CP(D)s, and many lessons can be learnt from the way they have traditionally organised their structures.
Pilot exercise The pilot is now two years’ old, and there have
been several innovations and collaborations that are in various stages of development for Health Boards/Trusts and the actual individuals working within these organisations. As things stand, NHS Wales has created an
All Wales Authorised Person (Decontamination) group, which is backed up by an intention from all Health Boards to create organisation Health Board AP(D) groups. The first All Wales Group meeting was held at Eastwood Park in March 2023, followed by a second meeting in March 2024 in Builth Wells. It is the intention that this
group will meet annually, with communication at routine intervals between these meetings. The focus of the group is to share ideas, resolve difficulties, promote better practice, provide Continuing Professional Development training, and discuss operation and resource concerns.
Four Health Boards Four Health Boards now have vibrant AP(D)
groups: Cwm Taf Morgannwg, Swansea Bay, Hywel Dda, and Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Boards operate under agreed Terms of Reference, and meet routinely to discuss and instigate improvements, with other Boards and Trusts following suit as work and resources progress. Formal minutes from these meetings feed into the organisational Strategic Decontamination Group, so are ultimately escalated up to Executive Board level. Looking back, there was a group of interested
AP(D)s within Wales providing support upon request, but it was evident that there was
Permit to work.
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