EBME


additional skills? You shouldn’t have to wait for your manager to retire to get a Band 8 post,” she continued. Another issue raised was the fact that there


are significant differences between Trusts’ banding for clinical engineers and what they are permitted to do. At one Trust, band fives can work on anaesthetic machines, for example, but at other Trusts, band threes can work on anaesthetic machines. “If you are going to make the profession more appealing, you also need to standardise. It is currently very subjective and largely depends on the mindset of the person running the department,” said one thought leader. She added that, at one Trust, most of the clinical engineers are a band seven, but at another, only a few team leaders are band sevens. This wide geographical variation makes it challenging for staff wanting to progress or to move between Trusts. “We cannot talk about making the profession


‘more attractive’ without making it more attractive everywhere you go. If you are a nurse with a degree, you generally get into a band six and then work up. If you are a clinical engineer and you have a degree, you may still be a band four and then have to work up,” she commented. The fact that a degree qualification is not


matched with an elevated renumeration for many clinical engineers was another deep frustration. Departments are “not always well funded”, as some pointed out, and in terms of career progression it is often a case of “dead man’s shoes”.


An expanding role The topic moved on to new hospital builds and new projects, and it was clear there is a need to ensure clinical engineering involvement at the very start of conversations, to avoid unforeseen issues. Often clinical engineering involvement is an afterthought. It was suggested that there is a need to move away from purely maintenance, which has been on the decline over time, and more into project management and procurement to deliver a clinical engineering solution for Trusts. The workshop also highlighted some of the misconceptions that exist, when new hospital builds and projects are being initiated. “There is a view that ‘hardware is hardware’


and ‘software is software’, so I had to educate the leadership,” said one clinical engineering lead. They pointed out that they were able to offer a vital contribution to a project by advising on standardisation, vendor-neutral solutions, and the capabilities and requirements of devices to integrate into the patient record. The clinicians’ preferred device under


consideration at the Trust had vulnerabilities from a cyber security perspective, and the clinical engineering team were able to flag this up as a potential threat and penetration testing was implemented. It was suggested that a medical device


integration lead can be particularly helpful in overseeing projects, but clinical engineering needs to partner with IT and have an understanding of the infrastructure. This will help build better relationships with IT and enable clinical engineers to contribute more effectively to projects. Project management skills could also be extremely useful for clinical engineers. “It isn’t just about maintenance. As clinical engineers, we are responsible for all aspects of the lifecycle of medical equipment and projects come up all the time – whether it is rolling out a set of new infusion pumps, defibrillators or equipping a new hospital. It might involve a CQC improvement project, or training – there are so many things that clinical engineers touch,” another thought leader commented. The organisational structure for the oversight


of clinical engineering also came under discussion: “I come from an estates-managed EBME background; I don’t have an issue with clinical engineering being managed under estates, providing your manager and their manager know what you are doing and are available to help if you have any problems. “But I have noticed that there is a tendency


to put clinical engineering under health estates, and estates have their own challenges and problems - they don’t really have the ‘bandwidth’. There is a big difference between the two professions, and it is hard to get this message


22 www.clinicalservicesjournal.com I September 2024


across,” a clinical engineering lead observed. Thought leaders also suggested that managers should recruit clinical engineers with more diverse skills sets - so there are strong IT, project management, regulatory and governance skills, as well as core EBME expertise, reflected across the team. During appraisals, there is also a need to identify people’s strengths and weaknesses, and to encourage staff to undertake further training to tackle any gaps.


User training The discussion moved on to the role of clinical engineers in providing user training. One thought leader reported that they are using eQuip (a type of professional medical device asset management software) to support user training across the Trust. At this Trust, clinical trainers have been hired especially to deliver the training. The Trust has also increased the use of RFID, which communicates with the training package. “We know where the devices are going and we can make sure their training records are prompted by the devices,” he explained. Training passports will also be retained into the staff records. “At our Trust, we have a training lead,” another thought leader interjected. “Only once a department has received a certain level of training can they receive the devices they have been trained on. However, we now have the issue that we have a lot of new devices coming out, which are more advanced, and the training manager is struggling to keep up with the number of new devices. There should be more than one person,” she commented.


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