Focus on systems for mobile units

Highly experienced medical gas specialist, Geoff Dillow, considers the particular challenges of designing, installing, and testing, medical gas systems used in the mobile units widely deployed on hospital sites in recent years for surgical and clinical use. In the first part of a two-part article, he explains that the design and construction limitations particular to such units can result in them incorporating medical gas systems that are not 100 per cent compliant with HTM 02-01, and argues for a pragmatic approach to addressing this. Part 2 will examine the engineering and pharmaceutical testing requirements of mobile installations.

Icould, of course, have titled this article ‘Another medical gas supplement?’ However, in the interests of a ‘catchy’ phrase, and with the help of the Corinthians (whose problems were indeed such), perhaps the title should have been ‘And lo, their problems were manifold’. Readers will now recognise that the article concerns medical gases, and specifically those roaming the ‘outback’ of HTM 02-01 territory, and hence potentially justifying themselves the right to a dedicated Supplement. 

Such a Supplement would join the existing documents supporting HTM 02-01, i.e. Medical Gases in Ambulances and Dental Compressed Air and Vacuum Systems, and HTM 08-06 – Pathology Laboratory Gas Systems which, as part of the ‘Specialist Services’ HTMs, is a more standalone document, but contains valuable references to medical gases.