Reprocessing 7.5 million surgical instruments and up to 50,000 endoscopes each year, Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust’s decontamination services and distribution facility is a 24/7 operation housed in a specially constructed unit on an industrial estate in Enfield, north London.
David Dodd, left, operational services manager, and Xander Martin, quality manager, Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust’s decontamination services and distribution facility
“Purpose-built to meet the needs of our customers, the supercentre handles decontamination services for all Royal Free London Group hospitals and a number of external NHS and private healthcare providers,” says David Dodd, operational services manager. “Taking into account everything that makes it tick – technicians, engineers, logistics and administration – we have over 200 full and part-time staff.”
Opening in 2019 with all new equipment the facility is accredited to the UK Medical Device Directive, operates to ISO 13485-2016 quality management standard and is JAG accredited. “We started with seven instrument washers, six autoclaves and six endoscope washer-disinfectors,” adds David. “When expanding the capacity by adding two further instrument washers and two more autoclaves, we took the opportunity to move to the Health-Edge track and trace system and to integrate it with neQis IPR (independent product release), which a number of the staff had worked with previously and found it to be reliable.” The Health-Edge and neQis combination was installed in 2023.
All the relevant data in a daily report
Describing the neQis system and its benefits, Xander Martin, quality manager decontamination services, explains: “We have neQis IPR installed on all of our instrument washers and autoclaves, and will be rolling it out on all of the endoscope washer-disinfectors as well. We’re now getting all the relevant daily and weekly reports on machine usage and uptime, downtime, faults, engineering and production cycles.
A neQis emailed daily report
“We get all the information for the daily report that’s circulated automatically to the management team. From it we can determine any issues that have occurred and trend failures, etc. The production staff sign-off the individual machine reports. It’s very useful and gives us everything we need.
“There are definite benefits. You can access the information from anywhere – phone, tablet, PC, and there are no licenses required. We use them to store all the machine printouts as well. It’s a reliable system. As with anything new, there were a few teething problems at the start, but no real issues. It integrates well with the track and trace system.”
The neQis system has improved the department’s ability to monitor and maintain all areas of plant. It allows for detailed reporting to management and environmental monitoring in production areas and stores.
Reduces training, avoids confusion, increase productivity
The versatile neQis IPR package was specifically developed to ensure safe release of critical products across a wide spectrum of applications within sterile services and endoscopy. The single monitoring system displays and collates data from multiple manufacturers and IPR has been shown to reduce the need for training, helps avoid confusion and improves productivity.
All the neQis systems’ archived data is quickly available on an integrated management dashboard. Historical information is easy to find as the interface is simple to use, with clear search facilities. These have links to trended chart data, while insights into all activity over the previous 24 hours are quickly available, with an option to view as far back as the very first cycles logged. The dashboard enables the creation of production reports showing machine performance criteria.
Single point overview
The system offers a single point overview of the whole unit from one screen. Users are able to see what stage of a cycle each machine is at – washers, autoclaves and endoscope washer-disinfectors. The Royal Free’s application also enables temperature and humidity monitoring across the facility.
Users enjoy peace of mind as neQis system is hosted on the Microsoft Azure cloud-computing platform which gives security, integrity, limitless storage and scalable resources. Azure allows neQis to use the optimum and fastest systems available.
The system includes remote monitoring, with an intercom facility. This allows the onsite team to have a
The neQis Peracetic Acid Monitor
real-time chat with neQis on a 24/7 basis and resolves or answers questions very quickly.
Peracetic acid monitoring
While plans are in hand to install neQis IPR on the endoscope washer-disinfectors, neQis’s PACMon peracetic acid monitoring system has been providing peace of mind in the area since 2023. “It ensures staff safety and assists with meeting our IHEEM requirements,” says Xander. “It’s good to know we’d be alerted if there were any problems, but since it has been installed there have been no issues reported.”
The PACMon single package provides continuous monitoring and logging of potential exposure to peracetic acid. It has a 24/7 alarm facility, with email, SMS and onscreen alerts. Similar to neQis IPR, it can be tailored to suit quality system guidelines, store unlimited data and used by any device with internet access.
Practical, straightforward advice
The hard and soft FM contract of the decontamination services and distribution centre is managed by cfes (Construction and Healthcare Services). Rob Doubtfire, managing director cfes, says: “Having the neQis dedicated monitoring package ensures that we have the correct solution for our site and the system is backed with long-term commitment and support. We use neQis because ‘they get it’ – practical straightforward advice, technical support and knowledge.”
Xander Martin adds: “As a company, neQis are very easy to work with. They always answer the phone or call back very soon and are quick to attend if required. We’re always up for working with neQis if anything is suitable and may look at other things with them in the future. I’d definitely recommend the system.”
Visit https://www.neqis.co.uk/ to find out more.
