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John Amoore Author

Francis Hegarty is is a founding member of the Medical Physics and Bioengineering Department in St James’s Hospital, Dublin, Ireland. Over the course of a thirty year career he has served within this department as a Biomedical Engineering Technician, Chief Technologist and later as Principal Physicist leading the Clinical Engineering group. In this time he has managed teams providing equipment management services and he is familiar with the application of healthcare technology in a broad range of clinical departments. He was instrumental in establishing the department’s management structure and is an advocate for multidisciplinary team working between clinicians and engineers. He led on the implementation of the department’s healthcare technology management systems. Central to this was his development of an innovative medical equipment management database system. He has led a number of multidisciplinary hospital projects where medical equipment was integrated in clinical information systems.

He has contributed to hospital management committees and chaired the hospital’s multidisciplinary medical device vigilance committee. During his career, St James’s Hospital underwent significant redevelopment and as a result Francis gained extensive experience in the design, planning and commissioning of new hospital facilities. Francis has also acted as a consultant in this regard to a number of other hospital projects in Ireland and overseas. At the time of the publication of this book he is the Chief Healthcare Technology Officer for Ireland’s new national children’s hospital project.

Francis studied electrical and electronic engineering at Dublin Institute of Technology and in 1994 complete an MSc in Physical Sciences in Medicine through the faculty of Health Sciences in Trinity College Dublin. His research interests include clinical measurement, clinical informatics, medical optics, assisted living technologies, art in health and healthcare technology management. He has published and presented widely on these topics. In 1998 he led the establishment of a Postgraduate Diploma in Clinical Engineering at Trinity College Dublin and acted as the course co-ordinator until 2005. He lectures on a number of undergraduate and post graduate courses and is a member of the Faculty of Health Sciences, Trinity College Dublin as well as being a Chartered Engineer, a member of the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine (IPEM) and an Affiliate of the Royal College of Anaesthetists.


John Amoore

retired in 2015 following a career spanning over 40 years, largely applying engineering to healthcare in academia, industry and health care. He gave nearly 30 years service to the National Health Service in Scotland both in Lothian and in Ayrshire and Arran from where he retired as Head of the Medical Physics Department where his responsibilities included budget responsibility for the procurement and maintenance of medical equipment. Academic training began with a BSc in Electrical Engineering which laid the foundation for his career and the recognition that engineering is about people and money as well as technology. Continuing professional development throughout his career followed, with part-time study in physiology (MSc) and biomedical engineering (PhD) and gaining skills in healthcare technology, its deployment and management.

John’s academic career included appointment as a Senior Lecturer in the Biomedical Engineering Department at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, developing lecture courses and supporting postgraduate students. He helped develop the new Biomedical Engineering Society of Southern Africa during the 1980s. Since moving to the UK he has continued research projects and served as external examiner for PhD theses. His publications (over 60 journal publications, 5 chapters in books and over 100 conference presentations) span several areas: theoretical modelling to better understand the cardiovascular system; medical device safety and risk management; infusion device management; blood pressure measurement; characteristics of specific medical devices; and healthcare technology management. He continues to serve as an external reviewer of manuscripts submitted to journals for publication. He has served on expert groups advising on blood pressure measurement technology.

Clinical engineering contributions include developing structured databases for medical equipment management, pioneering medical device training for clinicians, helping establish the first medical equipment library in his area of Scotland, leading the development of multi-disciplinary groups to advise on the management of medical devices, developing service level agreements to provide clinical engineering services, developing medical device incident reporting initiatives and helping the successful move of a major academic hospital (~800 beds). He has experience of responsibility for all medical equipment for a regional health area including budgetary responsibility for the procurement and maintenance of medical devices from clinical thermometers to major imaging equipment.

He recognized the importance of understanding the clinical situation in which medical equipment is deployed and the need for a team approach and ergonomic analysis in medical equipment selection. From the core clinical engineering aim of ensuring the safe application of medical technologies evolved an interest in understanding the causes and prevention of adverse events involving medical equipment. This, and collaboration with clinicians, led to an interest in person centred care.

During his working career he was registered professionally as an engineer and clinical scientist and contributed to engineering, medical engineering/physics and medical professional societies, including the organization of professional conferences and seminars.


Paul Blackett

started his career working for the inventor of the world’s first blood glucose meter in a small business unit in Consett, County Durham. After spending several years in medical electronics manufacturing in South Tyneside, Paul joined the NHS in 1985. Initially working at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle Upon Tyne as an Electronics Technician Paul also spent some time at South Tyneside General Hospital, before eventually moving southwards to take up a post at the Royal Preston Hospital as a Senior Medical Engineer.

Paul is currently Medical Engineering Manager at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust which comprises two acute hospital sites at Chorley and Preston. Through workshops at these two hospitals, the medical engineering team delivers a comprehensive service to their own trust and through service level contracts, to neighbouring organizations.

Paul is a member and past chair of the Clinical Engineering (North) National Performance Advisory Group and is an active member of IPEM, working as an external moderator for the technologist training scheme and a past member of the Clinical Engineering Special Interest Group. He has presented at scientific meetings on the subject of risk, key performance indicators, standardization and cross-Atlantic differences in Clinical Engineering guidance. Paul has also been part of the Department of Health working party on Modernising Scientific Careers and a member of the Northwest Healthcare Science Workforce Board. Paul is currently IPEM representative on the Register of Clinical Technologists Management Panel.

Paul graduated with BSc (Hons) after completing a part-time degree in Computing and Electronics. Keen on systems and standardisation, Paul’s current work interests lie in unique device identification (UDI) and risk analysis.


Justin McCarthy

has a BSc (Hons) degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Manchester University. He has had 40 years NHS experience in the field of Clinical Engineering. In his early career he was involved in developing new medical devices and equipment. He worked as part of the multi-disciplinary team in Cardiff that developed and brought into clinical use the first commercially available intravenous Patient Controlled Analgesia (PCA) apparatus. This gained him a research MSc degree.

In later years, as Head of Clinical Engineering, he led the teams that provided the healthcare technology management and maintenance services to the Cardiff NHS Trust’s medical equipment, introducing a formal ISO 9000 quality management system in 1991. He advised the Trust on risk, procurement and healthcare technology regulatory issues. He helped establish the Clinical Engineering MSc course at Cardiff University and continues as an Honorary Senior Lecturer teaching on the undergraduate Medical Engineering course.

He has contributed to fourteen peer reviewed published papers, seven journal articles and five text books as well as over 80 conference proceedings and presentations.

He retired from the NHS in 2009 but continues to present at meetings, publish, and sit on professional working groups as well as to provide consultancy services to Trusts and small businesses. He acted as an expert for the NHS Confederation at a European Commission policy conference in 2010 and has recently been leading, on behalf of IPEM, their input to the European Council, the European Parliament and the MHRA regarding the new Medical Devices Regulations. He continues to be involved in formal Standards at UK and international level and is Chair of the IEC SC62A sub-committee, responsible for IEC 60601-1, the primary safety Standard for medical electrical equipment.

He is a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and of IPEM.


Richard Scott

is a consultant clinical scientist and chartered engineer, working as Head of Clinical Engineering at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Additionally he is the Professional Lead for Clinical Engineering and Reconstructive Science at the UK’s National School of Healthcare Science, (part of Health Education England).

An engineering placement in the Division of Anaesthetics at the Clinical Research Centre, Harrow, completed as part of an electronics degree at North Staffordshire Polytechnic, encouraged Richard to pursue a career in clinical engineering. Upon graduating in 1984 he joined the Wessex Regional Medical Physics Service, based at the Royal United Hospital, Bath, providing scientific support for clinical instrumentation and undertaking a range of research projects. He obtained an MSc in medical electronics and physics from St Bartholomew's Medical College, followed by a PhD at the University of Bath, investigating the frequency dependence of respiratory mechanics via the oscillatory airflow technique. Subsequently he specialised in the management of medical devices and contributed to establishing the local medical equipment management service. In 1995, the opportunity arose to become head of the Medical Equipment Management Department at Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in Nottinghamshire. In December 2016 he moved to Sheffield and continues to encourage healthcare scientists to work together to play a key role in adopting innovative practices and driving service transformation for patient benefit.

Richard has contributed to curriculum development for UK NHS clinical engineering education programmes across the career framework and has been keen to develop engineering personnel with skills to ensure that healthcare technologies are effectively managed and care advanced for patient benefit. He led the Clinical Biomedical Engineering Higher Specialist Scientist Training scheme curriculum writing group on behalf of the Royal College of Surgeons, which has pioneered a new NHS consultant clinical engineer role.

Richard is active in the development of international electro-medical safety standards, serving on a range of British Standards Institution committees and is immediate past President of the Hospital Physicists' Association. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine, served as their Vice President: Professional and has acted as a professional advisor to the UK Department of Health Modernising Scientific Careers team. Richard is one of the first UK clinical engineers to be admitted to the Academy for Healthcare Sciences Higher Specialist Scientist register.