MEDICAL EQUIPMENT
Devices that have reached the end of their planned lifecycle at a healthcare site are still sought after by hospitals in other countries without the funds or accessibility to new equipment.
n Mortuary equipment – including body refrigeration, body stackers, and mortuary slabs.
n Commercial catering equipment – including ovens, deep fat fryers, ranges, refrigerators, sinks, hot cupboards, and bain-maries.
n Buildings – including Portakabins and large modular buildings.
n Generators – including generators, boilers, and compressors.
n Commercial refrigeration – including walk-in fridge/freezers.
Neill Saint, senior auctioneer at the Hilditch Group, said: “It was extremely important for us to include all islanders in the auction process, as the various Balfour Hospitals through the Centuries have been an integral part of the community. In fact, a large percentage of the assets have been redistributed among the islands.”
The project
Once confirmation was obtained from the Balfour Hospital to proceed, the Hilditch Group decommissioned the equipment, advertised, held the auctions, and equipment was removed within three months. This timeframe could have been a lot shorter had Christmas and bad weather not intervened.
All assets were stored at the Orkney ‘old site’ until the auction process was complete. In all, 75 lots were sold from the Orkney site, making an initial £52,205, minus a nominal commission for the Hilditch Group services, for the health board to reinvest back into patient services. As a result of the Hilditch Group’s diverse range of promotion there was a huge interest in all of the redundant assets, but since the Orkney Islands are extremely remote, many buyers were reluctant to travel such distances to collect the items. The remaining unsold lots were thus transported in the Hilditch Group’s own lorries to our warehouses in Wiltshire to be re-entered into auction to ensure the sale of all the Balfour Hospital equipment. Project manager, Danny O’Brien, said: “While I have completed around 30 on-site
80 Health Estate Journal October 2020
projects for the Hilditch Group during my time working here, the logistical organisation required for the project on the Orkney Islands was my toughest challenge to date. As tough as it was, I had a great feeling of pride in seeing the project through from start to finish, knowing that the customer had got what it wanted, and I know that it was a job well done.”
Some surprising results
The sale of equipment from the Orkney Islands certainly was an interesting project, not just from the logistical side of things, but also from a socio-economic standpoint. Items that would normally fly off the shelves in the southern United Kingdom and mainland Europe didn’t meet their reserves, but items that usually are hard to shift saw increased bidder numbers. The logical assumption for this is that the location played a huge part in the anomalous bidding patterns. Our expert intuition means that the Orcadians’ wants have been sated, and local interest in generators, modular buildings, and commercial catering equipment, has been fulfilled. With a rather generalised notion I can just picture a remote island workshop
being powered consistently throughout the dark winter months thanks to the Hilditch Group.
The final word should perhaps go to our client, Teresa Marwick, Estates officer, NHS Orkney, who said: “There is no doubt that without the assistance from the Hilditch Group’s efficient resale and project management process, there would still be a large quantity of redundant equipment located at the Balfour Hospital old site. The Hilditch Group has saved us a huge amount of the Board’s time and manpower by undertaking the inventory and advising on reasonable prices for charging. This expertise and investment of time was of significant value to the Board. The revenue generated from the sales will be invested back into patient service delivery in Orkney. The Hilditch Group’s careful consideration of the Orkney geographical idiosyncrasies has ensured that the local community has benefitted from the sale, while also ensuring that unnecessary haulage of equipment did not take place across a large distance, which would have added to an already large carbon footprint, and reduced the profit margin.”
David Dunning and the Hilditch Group
Marketing executive at the Hilditch Group, David Dunning, is an enthusiastic, driven marketer, with over 16 years’ experience across the B2B and B2C sectors. He has worked in the healthcare sector since 2016. Established in 1990, the Hilditch Group claims to be the leading medical equipment auctioneer in Britain, and ‘the foremost authority in the market’ for the re-sale and asset management of equipment for the NHS and private healthcare sectors. With over 30 years’ experience in the resale and distribution of biomedical devices, the Hilditch Group is also the longest-running medical auctioneer in the Europe, with offices in the UK, France, Spain, and Germany.
hej
©Hilditch Group
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108
