Job overview
Join our dynamic and passionate team of Medical Engineers and become an integral part of maintaining and managing Medical Devices at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals.
We are searching for an exceptional Engineer to join our extraordinary team and support clinical services within the hospital.
By joining us, you will have the exciting opportunity to play a key role in the seamless functioning of clinical services and ensuring the utmost safety for all patients.
Main duties of the job
Our prestigious ISO9001:2015 accredited department and become an integral part of managing over 36000 medical devices! Our team works tirelessly ensuring top-notch care for our patients.
As a member of our highly skilled team, you will have the opportunity to conduct acceptance testing, deliver planned maintenance, and repair a diverse range of medical equipment in various clinical divisions.
Your role is crucial in ensuring the safe and efficient operation of this equipment, minimizing downtime, and prioritizing patient safety at all times. With your extensive knowledge in medical engineering and impressive technical experience, you will be a valuable asset to our team.
Along with a passion for continuous personal development and the ability to remain professional and organized under pressure, you are a perfect fit for this exhilarating opportunity!
Working for our organisation
We have 10000 fantastic people working hard to deliver quality services to our patients. Whatever your role, you help look after 370,000 people in our local area & give specialist care to 1.5 million people across Lancashire & Cumbria.
Working with us gives you the knowledge and sense of pride that every activity you do genuinely does make a difference to support our patients & staff, ensuring we keep thriving & delivering outstanding healthcare right across our local towns.
You’ll have access to varied development opportunities, learn new skills, meet fab people & do things you’d never have done. You’ll learn about working in a hospital, interacting with people from all different roles to build skills & enhance your career path.
You’ll make an impact, be challenged to think differently, be bold & help innovate to keep improving things. Everything we do centres around patient care and enhancing their experience which means your role is pivotal and something really to be proud of.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
1. Communicate and develop relationships with a range of organisations and technical and clinical staff on adverse incidents, investigations and day to day issues.
2. Explain the possible configurations of users’ computer / microprocessor based equipment and configure it to operate appropriately and safely for their areas/tasks.
3. Develop relationships with medical equipment manufacturers and suppliers so as to obtain best value and quality with the supply of products and services
4. Liaise with external contractors to request repairs and repair quotations
5. Communicate efficiently with, and offer advice on medical equipment to, clinical and technical staff at all levels within the Trust. Advice may include purchase, use, training, replacement, research etc.
6. Prioritise and negotiate with other Health Care Professionals in obtaining access to medical equipment for maintenance.
Developing oneself and others within the Trust
7. Train junior Medical Engineers and take responsibility for their work when they are working under the post holder’s direction.
8. When appropriate, train clinical staff across the Trust in the function, operation and day-to-day maintenance of medical equipment.
9. Attend technical training courses when required and in line with the Job Description. This may include hardware, software, clinical, management or mandatory training.
10. Brief clinical staff across the Trust in the function, operation and day-to-day maintenance of medical equipment.
11. Support colleagues by providing them with technical information and training on devices where appropriate and passing on information gained from technical and clinical courses where required
12. Undertake CPD to update own technical knowledge of specialized equipment and update knowledge in respect of the Clinical use of such equipment.
Health and Safety
13. Be aware of, and contribute to, Health, Safety and Security of self and others. Act independently, safely, promptly and efficiently in all situations with patients, colleagues and contractors.
14. Take appropriate precautions to ensure safety when working with heavy loads.
15. Follow departmental guidelines to ensure safety when working on open live electrical equipment, equipment with high pressures, high voltage capacitors, dangerous mechanical parts, dangerous RF / microwave fields, powerful light / laser outputs, dangerous radiation levels or hazardous chemicals and on equipment in the patient environment.
16. Undertake all duties with due regard to infection control risks
17. Seek to minimise patient risk in all circumstances
Service Improvement
18. Organise the provision of loan equipment from service providers on occasions when repairs cannot be achieved within a desired time scale, or in incident situations, to enable patient services to be maintained.
19. Contribute to and participate in regular meetings with Medical Engineering Management to improve departmental performance.
20. When appropriate undertake project work
21. Be involved in the creation and updating of written procedures for the performance and functional verification of medical devices.
Quality
22. Work unsupervised to Professional Standards in compliance with Department of Health guidelines, relevant standards set by Regulatory Bodies and Departmental Procedures.
23. Use technical expertise and clinical experience to identify potentially hazardous symptoms and faults and act to ensure safety. In conjunction with senior staff, report novel fault conditions to the manufacturers and the MHRA.
24. Collate details of notifiable incidents, quarantine equipment and accessories, submit written reports to the MHRA and liaise with the MHRA, manufacturers and Hospital Staff in any subsequent investigation.
25. Be responsible for the quality of your work. Referring to department work procedures and to published guidance.
26. Highlight and bring to the attention of the Manager any deficiencies found in the quality of your own or others’ work in order that this may be rectified at the earliest opportunity.
27. Analyse the impact of equipment maintenance on service provision and work to minimise detrimental effects.
28. Follow Departmental procedures and seek advice when unsure on these.
Equality and Diversity
29. Be familiar with and follow the Trust’s reporting procedure for sickness, annual leave and flexi-time.
30. Act in ways that value diversity and encourage equality both within the department and in the wider Trust and working relationships with companies.
Systems vehicles and equipment
31. Carry out the regular maintenance, calibration, function checking and electrical safety testing of a wide range of medical equipment ensuring it is safe and complies with the manufacturer’s specification.
32. Prioritise planned preventative maintenance and medical equipment breakdown requests with departmental colleagues to ensure that scheduled maintenance is up to date and repairs are made as quickly and as efficiently as possible.
33. Acceptance test / commission new equipment ensuring that it is as ordered, is electrically safe, meets manufacturer’s specifications and MHRA guidelines and is appropriately CE marked.
34. Function and electrically safety test equipment upon its return from external repair and before its release to users.
35. Act independently, promptly and efficiently in response to emergency and unpredictable situations.
36. Take part in rotas when required and attend to urgent repairs immediately, undertaking, distributing to colleagues and following up repair work as required and returning completed equipment to users.
37. Where necessary, use skills, knowledge and understanding of the clinical applications of medical devices to assist the user with potentially faulty equipment that may still be attached to the patient.
38. Take part in the departmental out-of-hours on-call rota covering all medical devices in the Trust including imaging, anaesthetic machines, ventilators, ECG Monitoring Systems and Foetal Monitoring Systems. Where appropriate, act on telephone advice provided by specialist engineers and in turn provide online advice to other on-call engineers.
39. Take appropriate actions to ensure patient data, clinical information or event histories are preserved/backed up before maintenance or repair where possible
40. Assess the seriousness and implications of reported problems and respond appropriately to the urgency of the user’s request. Ensure that the users receive a high quality, prompt and efficient service and are kept informed of the progress of on-going and outstanding work.
41. Apply specialised fault finding techniques to diagnose complex problems including those beyond the scope of manufacturers’ supplied information and make repairs down to component level using expertise, precision engineering techniques and fine control of tools and small components.
42. Take responsibility for all tools and specialised test equipment within the post holder’s care and assist in ensuring workshop facilities are kept clear and well ordered.
43. Act as Lead engineer in one or more Specialist areas of Medical Engineering. These areas of expertise will be reviewed at regular intervals to meet the needs of staff development and the service in order to provide a comprehensive, high quality, cost-effective service and to ensure continuity during absence of colleagues
44. Appraise loan equipment provided for evaluation and advise user during trials of appropriateness for purpose and future maintainability.
45. Maintain a level of competency in all devices to ensure medical engineering knowledge and skills are maintained and cover for other engineers is in place.
46. Apply knowledge of IT and cyber security in the securing of patient data and the trust IT networks. Understand the particular IT hardware and software issues that arise with medical equipment and discuss at joint meetings with IT colleagues
Procurement and commissioning
47. Raise orders for spare parts, the dispatch of repairs and engineer call-out dealing with subsequent financial queries regarding price verification and delivery of goods and services
48. Ensure that stocks of any components and spare parts used, do not fall below agreed levels.
49. Liaise with, supervise and work alongside external service contractors
Information processing
50. Take appropriate precautions to ensure that clinical information / event history on computer based systems has been backed-up before maintenance is carried out.
Person specification
Knowledge & Experience
Essential criteria
51. Extensive knowledge and experience of Managing Medical Devices 2015, CE marking, British / European standards for medical equipment
52. Sound knowledge of basic scientific, clinical, physiological, computing and Medical Engineering principles.
53. Significant experience of maintaining a wide range of medical equipment.
54. Knowledge of design, construction, use, maintenance and repair procedures of medical equipment.
55. Experience in the Health and Safety aspects of repair and maintenance of medical equipment in a major hospital.
56. Comprehensive experience of record keeping on computer based systems
57. A contributor to teamwork and experience of working in teams, sharing experience, tasks and responsibility.
58. Experience of reporting and investigating incidents involving medical equipment.
59. Knowledge of infection dangers from working on medical equipment
60. Understanding of Cyber security, IT hardware and software issues in relation to medical equipment.
61. Knowledge of the requirements surrounding data security and protection of personal data.
Desirable criteria
62. Experience of working within an ISO9001:2015 Quality System
63. An understanding of basic anatomy and physiological signals, chemicals and homeostasis.
64. Experience of working with others, supervising juniors, supervising contractors and coaching/instructing equipment users.
Qualifications & Education
Essential criteria
65. HNC/HND or equivalent in a relevant subject. A lower academic qualification may be considered if the person has substantial relevant experience
66. Significant technical experience of maintenance and repair of medical equipment; working within a medical engineering department.
67. Certificates of training at appropriate Manufacturers’ Training Courses
Desirable criteria
68. Clinical training courses
69. Register of Clinical Technologist registration