EBME EBME and procurement of HealthTech


Procurement of health technologies was also discussed during the Workshop. It was suggested that EBME departments need greater influence and control over procurement. “We try to get our procurement


department on board to stop the purchase of medical equipment, if it doesn’t come through medical physics or EBME. Often, they’ll knock back items, but they need to be able to identify what it is – if these items just come in as model numbers, it can get a little bit more chaotic. “Things like scales or BP monitors, get


knocked back by procurement, so they end up not going through the system at all. It’s total chaos now that people can buy little BP monitors from anywhere – from Boots and Amazon. We try to at least have them on our


system for inventory purposes, so that if there are safety notices released, we can let people know,” one of the delegates explained. Another pointed out, “How can you maintain these devices on an annual basis if you don’t know where they are? A lot of the time it just says they are in ‘the community’ and, once it’s in the community, the reliance is on people bringing them back to us if they suspect it’s faulty.” While there is some guidance from the MHRA on medical device management, there needs to be specific guidance on managing community-based medical technologies. It was suggested that a Special Interest Group could be formed to address the lack of guidance. The plethora of items available on NHS supply chain also presented issues for EBME departments, in


clinical engineers around IT, the more likely they are to be poached by the IT industry. So that is a real risk as well. I’m not saying we shouldn’t do it, for that reason, but pay is going to be a challenge.” One of the EBME experts went on to caution against


another challenge – if EBME departments become absorbed by the ‘digital directorate’, there is a risk that they may become ‘overlooked’ due to the many other competing demands and priorities. One of the delegates pointed out that, at their Trust, IT


is overseen by the Chief Digital and Information Officer’s department (CDIO), then there is ‘CDIO (Med)’ – where the Clinical Safety Officer is located. They are responsible for connectivity, including patient tracking systems etc. “That’s our route in,” they explained. Overall, the discussion highlighted the fact that there is no standardisation across Trusts, with a wide variety of approaches being implemented to tackle the increasing connectivity of medical devices. In the absence of strategic oversight on a national scale, each Trust is tackling the issue of device connectivity and evolving responsibilities in different ways. Ultimately, IT training and collaboration will be key going forward.


Technology’s impact on patient care The conversation moved on to ‘technology’s impact on patient care’ and Iain Threlkeld asked the delegates to consider the following: n As we move towards providing care away from acute hospitals, what needs to happen to support patients with access to medical equipment in these environments?


In the absence of strategic oversight on a national scale, each Trust is tackling the issue of device connectivity and evolving responsibilities in different ways. Ultimately, IT training and collaboration will be key going forward


68 Health Estate Journal November 2025


terms of managing medical devices. Emphasising the need for a more


centralised approach and more control over the medical devices coming into Trusts, one delegate observed: “Procurement departments are coming at it from ‘how can we get stuff to end users as soon as possible and at the cheapest price?’ They are not looking at medical devices in terms of all the extras that we look at. So, why isn’t there a central team checking this? “Rather than every single organisation doing this work, we could have a central team doing all the groundwork and saying, ‘we have looked at this and it’s okay’. Then as an organisation, you could choose what you’re going to standardise on. If we had this, it would save a lot of work and it would give more reassurance and safety.”


n Is there a need for new roles to support this? n What challenges do we see in moving towards remote care and how can we ensure we are ready to address these?


The government is keen to roll out ‘virtual wards’ with more care being delivered in the home environment. Iain Threlkeld highlighted a paper from the Institute of Mechanical Engineers, highlighting a need for the introduction of a ‘patient enablement engineer’. The report can be accessed at: https://tinyurl.com/5e7a8uxd. Patient enablement engineers would work exclusively


in the space between acute care and social care with their clinical colleagues. They would not only require the full remit of engineering qualifications and skills but in-depth clinical and social care knowledge as well as management and customer service experience. “There could be a challenge here – how do we get people into the home environment and support them?” He pointed out that with home dialysis, for example, there will be an increase in water bills. “Who is paying for the extra water to run this? We have some elderly patients who need a machine which talks to the internet and sends results to the hospital, but they don’t have WiFi and they can’t afford it, so who is going to pay for it? Who is setting this up? Potentially, there are a lot of challenges out there,” he commented.


Control and influence One of the delegates responded: “We have a virtual ward, but the team are based on site. One of the issues that arises, when we send babies home on oxygen for example, is that it’s often provided by a third-party provider via the GP, which we have no control over,” he explained. Further issues have been identified during telecare trials:


“The GP may want to monitor the patient’s blood pressure, for example, and they will state that the data should come to the GP. The hospital may be providing the equipment, but now the GP is saying, ‘well, actually it’s my patient’. There is a whole political thing, in the background, and with social care. Is the hospital funding the device that is going out into the community? Is the GP funding it or is it coming out of the social care budget?” he commented. “I think are we going to end up with a patchwork of


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