IHEEM has announced that it is to jointly manage, and support, the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine’s (IPEM) Voluntary Register of Clinical Technologists (VRCT), in conjunction with IPEM and the Association of Renal Technologies (ART).
This marks a continuation of the close working relationship between IHEEM and IPEM following their signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signalling future collaboration late last year.
The VRCT was first opened in August 2000 as a platform for the clinical technologist profession’s campaign for statutory regulation with the then Health Professions’ Council, and today operates as a means of statutory regulation for such technologists.
IHEEM CEO, Julian Amey, elaborates: “With our signing of a new, second Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with IPEM, the Institute will help process applications for registration with the VRCT, and lend its weight to promoting the benefits of registration to clinical technologists.”
As part of the process, Ian Threlkeld, a Fellow of IHEEM, member of the Medical Devices Technology Platform, and Chartered Engineer, who is head of Clinical Engineering at Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and Dave Easton, FIHEEM, also a Chartered Engineer, and the director and lead consultant at electro-bio medical engineering specialist, Zenger Engineering Services, who chairs the same IHEEM Technology Platform, will join the VRCT registration panel.
“Another element of our recent close working with IPEM,” Julian Amey explained,” is our co-writing, with IPEM and CIBSE, of an ‘Engineering and Healthcare’ report for the Royal Academy of Engineering. This will highlight the key role that healthcare engineers play in the smooth and efficient running of hospitals and other healthcare facilities in the run-up to the 2015 General Election.
“Largely case study-based, this report should be published shortly, and should considerably raise the profile of healthcare engineers by clearly highlighting the skills, expertise, professionalism, and commitment, of those working in the field, and their considerable contribution to the smooth delivery of 21st-century healthcare.”
