A technical platform for future success

With the Government, and a more informed consumer, putting a stronger focus than ever on all aspects of hospital hygiene and safety, increasingly stringent healthcare legislation and standards, and the prospect of regular inspections by new watchdog the Care Quality Commission in England, the AE (D)’s role in ensuring that sterilisation and decontamination of medical instruments and other equipment is undertaken to the highest possible standards at hospitals up and down the country will surely become ever more important in the short-tomedium term. However, according to Graham Stanton, senior decontamination officer at Welsh Health Estates, and chairman of IHEEM’s recently established Decontamination Technical Platform, at a time when such professionals’ expertise and skills are badly needed, there are currently “not nearly enough” qualified, experienced, and registered AE (D)s across the UK to fulfil the Department of Health and devolved administrations’ expectations. Furthermore, he and Brian Kirk believe, with the Department having “stepped back” from involvement in AE (D)s’ activities in around 2000, there has been no truly effective professional body representing such individuals’ interests since. Fortunately, however, thanks to the efforts and commitment of a small group of existing AE (D)s, this anomaly has now been addressed, with last December’s formation of the new IHEEM Decontamination Technical Platform. Graham Stanton said: “The new Platform is, in the view of the small group of professional AE (D)s now operating in the UK, an extremely welcome addition to the Institute’s portfolio.” IHEEM is, of course, no stranger to the whole area of sterilisation and decontamination, having, over the past 17 years, held the voluntary registers for both Authorised Persons (Sterilisers) and, more recently, Authorising Engineers (Decontamination) (see panel on page 22) “What has, however, been missing since around 2000, when the DH’s Estates Division drew back from involvement in the work of AP (S)s, and subsequently AE (D)s, has been a really effective body to promote the role, represent the interests of working AE (D)s, foster higher standards via education and training, and indeed work to attract more people to what remains an extremely important health service function. “The second major issue the sector faces,” he continued, “and this really reinforced the need for the new Decontamination Technical Platform, is a real shortage in the number of qualified and experienced AE (D)s.

Passed to the private sector

Graham Stanton and Brian Kirk went on to explain that, while the devolved authorities in Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland have “slightly less of a problem here”, since Health Facilities Scotland, Welsh Health Estates, and Northern Ireland’s Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety, have always, and continue to, employ their own sterilisation and decontamination engineers to audit their own hospitals, since the NHS’s re-structuring in 1993- 1994, when many of the core NHS service functions were passed over to the private sector in England, English hospitals have had to draw largely on AE (D)s acting as independent contractors. This is one of the key areas from which IHEEM would like to see more applications for AE (D) registration. Currently, Graham Stanton and Brian Kirk explained, there are only 33 AE (D)s covering the whole of the UK. With the ongoing and tightening focus on hospital decontamination centres, and the fact that, for instance, from later this year, dentists’ premises will be expected to have their decontamination/sterilisation activities regularly audited (under HTM 01-05, and Health and Social Care Act-empowered CQC inspection and audit procedures), they believe this quota is “nothing like enough”. Conscious of the shortage of appropriately qualified individuals, and feeling, some three years ago, that the then AP (S)s, and, subsequently, AE (D)s, needed an effective, unified group with sufficient gravitas and influence to represent them and steer policy, Graham Stanton explained that AE (D)s attending one of the many informal meetings of such professionals that were customarily held across the country proposed establishing the new IHEEM special interest group and, subsequently, the IHEEM Decontamination Technical Platform that was in development. (Today the Platform’s chair reports to the IHEEM Council through the chair of the IHEEM Technology Platform Committee. There will be eight different Technology Platforms in total).