Improving training in EBME skills

Avensys Medical was founded in 2006 by ex-Ministry of Defence Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, Rob Strange (now MD) and Steve Holt (engineering director). Today the company not only provides engineering support to 50 private hospitals, 12 NHS hospitals and six NHS Community Trusts, but it is also the ‘service arm’ for a number of manufacturers. What makes the company unique in the UK, however, Robert Strange told me when I met him at the company’s Kidderminster headquarters, is that it also offers a wide range of tailored and modular, job-specific training for users of medical equipment throughout the UK. Among the recipients are electro-biomedical engineers in NHS hospitals and private healthcare facilities maintaining anything from infusion pumps and anaesthetic machines, to premature baby incubators or X-ray equipment. Alongside delivering training from its Kidderminster Training Academy – which is equipped with the latest medical and dental equipment to provide a training environment as close as possible to a ‘real world’ scenario – Avensys also offers distance learning options. This allows both new entrants, and seasoned EBME engineers, to boost their skills and advance their careers without impacting on their day-to-day work. 

Meanwhile, a team of 22 engineers, 10 based in Kidderminster, and the remainder ‘out in the field’, provide medical equipment maintenance, audit, and consultancy, to establishments ranging from large acute hospitals to step-down care facilities and community and primary healthcare facilities. In all, the company provides service support to over 50,000 engineering ‘assets’ UK-wide. Every piece of equipment is identifiable on an in-house developed database which also provides both Avensys and users details of asset location, full service and maintenance history, and training records. 

Used medical equipment