Health Minister Lord Philip Hunt said "Medical devices play an increasingly important role in looking after patients wherever they are cared for. The booklet "Equipped to care" provides practical information on medical devices for health professionals, who will enhance patients care" (Department of Health 2000). Demographic factors, changing illness patterns and the concept of patients as consumers of healthcare will act as a driver to the delivery of care, where sophisticated device usage will become increasingly routine (Department of Health 2002). Medical devices have moved from being tools to support clinical practice to being an integral requirement in treatment delivery (Quinn 2000). However, use of medical devices is not entirely free of risk since sometimes they malfunction, or sometimes clients may have increased suffering from their misuse.
Over the past 20 years, there has been significant development around medical device safety, from MHRA and the Department of Health. However, in the later years, available studies have been limited. Research articles were published in the early stages of development on the safety of use of medical devices and were reinvestigated some years later, in 2001 - 2003. For some time, there has been a shortfall of ongoing research, and tremendous advances in medical equipments at the same time, previous research were deemed unreliable. It is perceived that major devices of the earlier time are now considered as minor. The major devices being studied today would not have been foreseen in previous years. The evolving complexity of devices and the need for training have been highlighted (MDA 1998 cited in Quinn 2000). An example from Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust back in 1995 plastic tongue thermometers were used, and now, they have been replaced with tympanic thermometers. This essay will focus on the strategic importance of training around the modern day medical devices in an emergency care centre, analysing the research involving the given topic and degree of needing to change/to make changes.
The term "medical devices" are all products, except medicines, used in healthcare for the diagnosis, prevention, monitoring or treatment of illness or disability (MHRA, 2008). There are approximately 1,800 categories of devices, these categories host 10,000 medical devices with a potential of over 400,000 devices on the market at any given point in time (Pammolli et al 2005 cited in Weir) (please see appendix 1). This demonstrates the need of training and need for applications of strict principles of safety in practice. If the medical devices are used incorrectly, the resultant outcome can be fatal or at least may compromise the wellbeing of a patient. Due to the vast number of these available devices, their complexities and categories, the safety practice involved in this vast array of all medical devices, there is a dire need of the magnitude of training and competency of using such devices.
The history of medical devices evolution and regulations related to the usage of these began in the mid 1990's - a Europe-wide initiative. The Department of Health took great care in setting up the improvement of the safety principles and quality parameters of medical equipment. This was done by the subcommittee of the Medical Devices Directorate (MDD). Following this, it became the Medical