Launched in April 2008, the Project involved Trading Standards Officers throughout the UK visiting their local hospitals to find out what weighing equipment was in use, whether it was accurate and legal, if it was being used correctly, if it was being maintained and whether it was suitable for the purpose.
The results of the first survey were, to say the least, interesting. In summary:
Only 16% of hospitals trained their staff in weighing patients,
- 1/3 of hospitals had no defined procurement policy, wards and departments bought what they wanted,
- 1/4 of hospitals had no inventory of their weighing equipment,
- 1/3 of hospitals had no inspection/maintenance programme for their weighing instruments
- 40% of equipment in use was switchable between metric and imperial units
- 34% of equipment was outside the legally allowed error range
- 60% of equipment was Class IIII or unclassified
- 22% of equipment was not set at zero
In a recent meeting to finalise the interim report, LACORS, in conjunction with the Department of Health for England and the UK Weighing Federation, agreed on a series of recommendations to Hospitals and Health Trusts. These recommendations are as follows:
1. There should be one department in each hospital/trust responsible for procurement provision and maintenance of all medical weighing equipment
2. Each hospital/trust should instigate an appropriate programme of testing
3. Basic training in the use of weighing instruments should be included in training and induction procedures
4. Any equipment outside legal tolerances should be immediately removed and either replaced or repaired
5. All new weighing equipment should be of Accuracy Class III or higher
6. New weighing equipment should only be capable of displaying in metric units; hospitals/trusts should seriously consider replacing switchable instruments or having the switches disabled
The UKWF fully endorses these recommendations, and believes that hospitals/trusts should implement them without delay. It may be that cost constraints mean that the recommendations will need to be adopted through a planned implementation programme, and members should work with their local hospitals to formulate an appropriate and workable plan.
We understand that the Department of Health will be issuing a new Facilities Alert to all hospitals shortly drawing attention to the LACORS Report and giving guidance on how the Recommendations should be implemented. We will add a copy of that Alert to our web-site as soon as we receive it. In the meantime anyone wanting a full copy of the LACORS report can download it from the LACORS web site at www.lacors.gov.uk | 
