A passion for engineering and for people within it

Nigel Keery, an IHEEM Council Member who will be well-known to many in healthcare EFM and engineering circles for his gregarious personality, enthusiasm, humour, and open, friendly manner, made clear to me during an interesting 45-minute 'Teams' chat that he has loved working in healthcare engineering, and that — given his time again, he would not have swapped the profession for any other. A natural 'people person', he says meeting a broad range of different personalities — whether a Trust CEO, an engineering technician, a healthcare architect, or an occasional VIP / Royal visitor to one of several large Belfast hospitals that he and his team look after — is something he considers a real highlight of the job. Equally, he has always loved the considerable autonomy and opportunity to use one's initiative that healthcare engineering roles afford. As he put it: "In healthcare engineering positions you're allowed to be a wee bit different, to think for yourself, and to take on a challenge. It can make your job so much more rewarding to be able to express an opinion based on your knowledge and expertise — for example in response to an engineering issue, and — equally — to be able to put that bit of extra effort in to get a problem solved."

One excellent example was in the spring of 2020, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, when — as part of the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust Estates & Facilities team, Nigel Keery and several of his colleagues developed, and had specially manufactured in Northern Ireland, eight oxygen concentrators, at the request of Northern Ireland's Department of Health (HSCNI). This followed the identification of 'weaknesses in oxygen delivery and infrastructure' at a number of hospitals there following a sharp rise in coronavirus cases, and a corresponding increase in demand for oxygen. "Northern Ireland doesn't make any oxygen of its own; it all comes in from the Republic of Ireland," he explained. "With the potential transport issues entailed in bringing in additional supplies from Dublin, it was a concern — if the worst case happened — that the Republic of Ireland had first call on all the available oxygen from there. In the midst of all this we also had the upheaval of leaving the EU to contend with, and the associated border uncertainty, so we had to look at how best we could supplement existing oxygen capacity not only at our own Trust's hospital sites, but also at others across Northern Ireland." Having in March and early April 2020 enquired about the availability of oxygen concentrators from manufacturers all over Europe, but finding none available, Nigel and his team approached companies in the Trust's existing supply chain for help. The result was that eight concentrators — based on two different designs, were specially assembled and built for the Trust externally to tight deadlines, to two different designs — with a 500 litre / min and 1000 litre/min output, one based on a German design, and the other a UK one.

About a year later, with Northern Ireland by this time having surplus hospital oxygen stocks, three of the concentrators were flown out to India to boost oxygen supply at regional hospitals there as a gesture of UK government support. The cargo on the massive Antonov An-124 plane that took them from Belfast International Airport to Delhi on 7 May 2021 also included 1,000 British-made CPAP systems. While this project alone may not have been solely responsible for Nigel subsequently receiving an OBE for Public Services to Health — which he received proudly from King Charles at Windsor Castle on 14 February 2023— it seems certain it had a hand. It became clear during our discussion, indeed, that 'problem-solving' has always been an aspect of engineering that appeals to the new IHEEM President, but — as he explained — he also had engineering in his blood.