Clinical engineering

Overview

Clinical engineering forms a part of The Christie Medical Physics and Engineering (CMPE).

The Christie NHS Foundation Trust uses a wide range of medical equipment to deliver healthcare services to its patients. The clinical engineering department is responsible for managing this equipment to ensure it is working correctly and is safe for patients across the Trust.

Our team of engineers can support a broad range of medical equipment from simple devices such as nebulizers, thermometers to critical care equipment like ventilators, anaesthesia machines and defibrillators. We draw upon the knowledge and experience of our engineers so that patients receive the very best healthcare.

Our department’s Quality Assurance (QA) systems and policies are accredited to ISO9001:2015 quality systems and follow Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) guidelines.

The services we provide are compliant with Care Quality Commission (CQC) Standards and internationally recognized standards such as IEC62353 Medical Electrical Equipment Requirements for Safety.

The clinical engineering department and the Radiotherapy Technical Services group (RTSG) has a collaborative approach with each other to meet service needs with cross-departmental training programmes which are underway.

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Responsibilities

The main role of a clinical engineer is to test and maintain the medical equipment, but the department is also involved in all other stages of the medical equipment’s lifecycle.

Depending on their training and experience, a clinical engineer’s responsibilities may include:

  • procuring medical equipment in the Trust,
  • commissioning and acceptance of new equipment into use,
  • introducing the equipment into service,
  • planning and scheduling the servicing and maintenance of the equipment,
  • consulting with end users and manufacturers to make sure needs are met,
  • corrective maintenance/troubleshooting problems,
  • maintaining the asset management system with accurate asset details, service, and maintenance history,
  • medical equipment replacement planning,
  • decommissioning, disposing of and replacing obsolete equipment,
  • providing advice to Medical Devices and Procurement Group (MDPC) when they select equipment,
  • liaising with Medical Devices Safety Officer (MDSO) to manage the receipt, dissemination, and implementation of MHRA Device Safety Information (MDSIs), Field Safety Notices (FSNs) and other notices and alerts from external agencies, and
  • assisting in investigation of internal incidents involving medical devices.

Additional services

We provide our support and services to The Christie Private Care, part of HCA Healthcare and to the Christie treatment centres across Greater Manchester and Cheshire.

Medical equipment library

The Trust has an equipment library at the main site which holds a stock of medical equipment. These are issued on a loan basis to required clinical areas and collected back to store by the equipment coordinator.

The equipment library / equipment coordinator phone extension: 0161 446 8248

The request for a loan equipment can also be made through Alertive System and is available Monday to Friday, from 9am to 5pm.

The porters provide delivery service during out of hours, and at weekends.

Teaching and training

Apprenticeship scheme

The CMPE engineering department has run an apprenticeship scheme since 2015, which has employed 3 apprentices. The apprenticeship is an ‘earn as you learn’ system, where the apprentice receives a formal academic education at no cost while also learning technical skills and gaining vital work-based experience.

The apprentice scheme utilises the Government Apprenticeship Levy to fund an academic course for the apprentice to attend on a weekly day-release basis. On the days when the apprentice is on site, they learn how to carry out planned and corrective maintenance on our fleet of radiotherapy equipment including medical linear accelerators.

The Quality Safety Training (QST) lead engineer and medical devices education project lead ensure that all engineers are trained to the appropriate level and that the training is carried out in a structured way.

Professional developments

We actively promote professional registration within the department. Continuing professional development (CPD) is important and includes attending courses, events, and conferences, as well as gaining membership with a professional body.

The Register of Clinical Technologists (RCT) through IPEM: The Christie NHS Foundation Trust is an IPEM accredited training center for clinical engineering technologists.

There are a range of leadership and management course available to staff through the NHS Leadership Academy and the leadership at The Christie programme to allow them to discover their full leadership potential and achieve the highest standards in health and care.

CMPE clinical engineering group leadership

Shaun is a chartered engineer and started his career working for the Ministry of Defence in Trident as a project manager. After that, he moved to The Christie in Manchester working within radiotherapy engineering where he progressed to technical services manager. In 2015, he took over the clinical engineering section to become head of engineering of medical devices for the Trust.

Shaun has served on many professional groups for the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine (IPEM) and played an integral part to bringing radiotherapy closer to the patient, setting up with colleagues, 3 treatment centres, and was lead engineer bringing NHS proton services to the UK working in conjunction with University College London Hospitals (UCLH) and NHS England.

Jackie joined The Christie as a team leader after working at Salford Royal Hospital until summer 2021 and was appointed head of clinical engineering in September 2023. She has previously worked as a critical care scientist and electronics engineer (EBME) and has been in the NHS for over 30 years. As a member of IPEM, Jackie is a moderator for clinical engineering and has sat on NHS England IAAC board for Critical Care.

Lee has spent over 40 years working as an engineer in a variety of NHS clinical engineering, medical physics, and EBME departments in the north-west of England. He has gained a wealth of experience supporting a wide range of specialist medical devices in various healthcare settings.

Starting his career here at The Christie northwest medical physics department, Lee then moved to medical engineering posts at Salford and Bolton. He then took team leader positions at Wigan and then Salford where he also spent 5 years as a specialist renal engineer before moving back to The Christie as a clinical engineering team leader. Lee is a member of the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine (MIPEM) and Registered Clinical Technologist (RCT).

Richard has spent over 35 years working as an engineer in a variety of NHS clinical engineering, medical physics, and EBME departments in the north-west of England. He started his career as a supernumerary medical physics technician trainee employed on the North-Western Medical Physics Regional Training Scheme, based at Manchester Royal Infirmary. Along with vocational qualifications in Electronic Engineering (Ordinary National and Higher National Certificates), Richard completed a BEng (Hons) degree in Electronics and Communications Engineering and a MSc degree in Physics and Computing in Medicine (Biomedical Engineering).

Richard has experience supporting a broad range of general and specialist equipment found in adult, infant, paediatric, acute, specialist and community healthcare settings. Most recently, he has worked in proton beam therapy at The Christie. He is a member of the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine (MIPEM) and the Institution of Engineering and Technology (MIET), and he has over 12 years of experience volunteering as an external moderator on the IPEM Clinical Technologists Training Scheme. He is also a Registered Clinical Technologist (RCT).

CMPE clinical engineering contact

  • Clinical engineering workshop telephone: 0161 446 3903
  • Critical care unit workshop telephone: 0161 918 7085
  • Clinical engineering email address: the-christie.cmpe.admin@nhs.net

We are available Monday to Friday, 7:30am to 5:30pm.

Last updated: March 2024

© 2024 The Christie NHS Foundation Trust