Investing wisely for longer-term gains

while meeting minimum HTM and other standards, may offer compromised performance, especially over time, two key sales and product personnel at leading medical gas equipment supplier, BeaconMedæs, told HEJ editor Jonathan Baillie that “investing a little more” initially would reap considerable longer-term dividends, in payback, lifespan, and patient safety terms.

 Given the stringent financial conditions under which the NHS is likely to have to operate for the next 3-5 years, it would be hardly surprising if those holding the purse strings at NHS Trusts and other healthcare providers seemed inclined, increasingly, to favour plant that will “do the job required”, rather than necessarily making it a priority to purchase premium-end machinery and components which, BeaconMedæs argues, will often prove more reliable, require less maintenance, and run more efficiently and economically, longer term. While acknowledging the need for financial prudence at a time of tightening budgets, the company’s UK sales manager Kevin Heath, and his colleague, product manager, Andy Tudor are, they told me when we met recently at BeaconMedæs’s headquarters, increasingly concerned, and at times frustrated, that, against today’s tough economic backdrop, insufficient thought may be being given by those actually signing off purchase of medical gas equipment to how well the machinery will stand the test of time. They also believe that the personnel best-qualified to make the decisions on this “quite complex” plant – experienced estates engineers – often now have less say. While plant purchased with price as the key determining factor may meet HTM standards and “perform adequately”, they question whether, over time, it may actually prove less reliable, and actually end up costing users more? “In fact,” said Andy Tudor, “some equipment built down to a cost is likely to not only break down more frequently, but may also cost more to maintain, use more energy, and, in the worst eventuality, even compromise patient safety.”

Arguing their case