FEATURE ARTICLES

The WannaCry ransomware attack caused chaos for those attempting to assess the vulnerability of medical equipment. Paul A Blackett, medical engineering operations manager and M.Wilkinson, medical engineering projects and planning officer at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, provide insight into a classification system that has been developed to aid practical assessments.

The Central Sterilising Club’s Annual Scientific Meeting takes place on16to17 April 2018 at the Marriott Hotel, Cardiff. With topics ranging from endoscope decontamination, staff training and transportation requirements, to washing optimisation, medical device equipment processing and tracking systems, the event provides expert advice on a broad range of infection prevention & control issues.

The healthcare profession is filled with lone workers facing risks and hazards aplenty on a daily basis. Mathew Colley, sales & marketing manager at lone worker protection specialist LoneAlert asks: while our health workers are looking after us, who is looking out for their safety?

EBME chairman, Dr John Sandham, discusses what to expect at this year’s EBME Seminar and Exhibition. The seminar is an independent educational event bringing together healthcare professionals who are responsible for the management of medical equipment.

Emergency admissions cost the NHS £13.7billion in 2015-16 and pose a serious challenge to both the service and financial position of the NHS. A new report by the National Audit Office(NAO) reveals that the task of managing these admissions urgently needs addressing.

The shortage of radiologist staff has long been a major concern for UK Trusts. Despite the latest workforce report underlining that there seems to be “no end in sight” for the imaging doctors staffing crisis, are things as bad as they seem?

Proven innovations have taken too much time to be adopted by the NHS in the past,but some key initiatives aim to tackle this issue with the aim of improving patient outcomes.

Kate Woodhead RGN,DMS unwraps ath ree yearglobal campaign whichhas been developedinabid to highlight thecritical work of nursing.

With a career spent running training in the medical device industry, Steve Dickson, training academy manager at Avensys UK Training, believes apprenticeships should be made more accessible and widely used to help address healthcare recruitment issues and skills shortages.

Is there need for a different approach to digital transformation? Chris Barker, CEO, Spirit Healthcare, argues that the best healthcare gains will come from CCGs exploring more localised initiatives that take into account fluctuating local contexts and dynamics. So can incremental innovation really drive sustainable healthcare gains?

The arrival of Virtual Reality (VR) as a collaborative vehicle allows clients to be involved and invested throughout the design and planning process. Scott O’Malley, marketing manager at Medstor, illustrates how VR can work within a wide variety of healthcare scenarios.

Medstromis supporting Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust with the management of beds and mattresses, which has led to significant improvements in patient safety and experience.

A novel project has been developed to test thousands of management strategies in seconds. Mark O’Donnell from Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Andy Moore from Frazer-Nash Consultancy describe how technology could help managers to make the best decisions without putting patients at risk of harm.

With an estimated 850,000 people living with dementia in the UK and an expected increase to 1 million by the year 2025, there has never been a more important time for clinical studies into this devastating disease. The Clinical Services Journal asks consultant neuroradiologist Dr Emer MacSweeneyhow her team in Harley Street Medical Area are paving the way for a future without the disease.

Last year, the Royal Devon and Exeter (RDE) NHS Foundation Trust ran a pilot scheme showing how adopting highly accurate, laboratory quality testing on admission can help to control the spread of influenza and mitigate the effect this can have on patient flow and bed management.

On Wednesday 14 March 2018 delegates will head to the Marriott Forest of Arden in Warwickshire for the Theatres and Decontamination Conference 2018, with an event programme built around subjects suggested by healthcare personnel.

As the UK’s Five-year Strategy comes to an end this year, the threat posed by antimicrobial resistance continues to dominate the headlines. However, are we making progress? Which pathogens are proving to be problematic and how should we be moving forward to tackle the threat of AMR in the future?

Length of stay in acute care hospitals is under increasing pressure to reduce costs per patient stay, as well as releasing bed capacity. Technical editor, Kate Woodhead RGN, DMS, examines the importance of a continual assessment process to ensure that there is no compromise to the patients’ recovery.

The UK’s medical profession is at ‘a crunch point’ and will suffer increasing pressure over the next 20 years unless action is taken. This is the stark warning from the General Medical Council’s State of Medical Education and Practice report.

Professor Bob Stone, a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors, has more than 30 years’ experience of Virtual Reality (VR) with his systems and technologies being used around the world by the likes of BAE, MOD and now NHS Trusts. Chris Shaw asks Prof Stone how these systems are being integrated into healthcare environments.