Introduction
The aim of the project is to implement a National Medical Equipment Management system across NHS Scotland providing a single I.T. platform, with a database of over c.450,000 medical equipment assets, spread across 35 sites, in 14 Territorial and 3 Special Boards. To enable this to happen the project must migrate the current data sources to a single national platform. As all the Health Boards currently run standalone database systems, all development can be facilitated in parallel with current operational databases, allowing for business as usual.
Initial focus would be on acute and high end medical equipment, the Scottish Assets and Facilities Report (SAFR) has shown that c. 90% of the value of medical equipment is held within the acute sector. However, it should be noted that further to this, there is future opportunity to add laboratory, primary care and point of care testing equipment.
It should be noted that other parts of the NHS who also maintain databases have also expressed an interest in using our solution for similar purposes. Although this project intends on facilitating this request, it is not a core deliverable. The position of the Project Board (PB) is that we will consider supporting other areas or work away from medical equipment with our solution assuming it does not impact negatively on our core deliverables, and it enhances the new specialism’s capability in a “once for Scotland” approach. There also clear links to other projects being implemented such as the Scan for Safety Programme.
Funding has been made available to go out to tender, from the National Infrastructure Board and a project board and sponsor exist to ensure delivery.

Background
For a number of years, it has become increasingly apparent that the lack of the existence of a national medical equipment management system (NMEM) in Scotland has left gaps in our understanding of our medical equipment. The recent covid-19 pandemic, highlighted this gap in knowledge which led to a difficulty in understanding how prepared we were for significant increases in patients with respiratory conditions needing acute support. As a result, our first challenge in this pandemic was to first carry out a stock take before engaging procurement to significantly increase our capacity before the expected onslaught of demand.
To consider, that pandemic planning is the only use of a NMEM would miss the point entirely. These systems are also used for other purposes in our local Health Boards:
• Planning and scheduling of maintenance work
• Capturing qualifications and training of technicians
• Workflow planning
• Capital planning for replacement of equipment
• Management of alerts from IRIC or MHRA

However, these bullets above detail the local requirement, in addition to local needs, there are also national requirements. Local Health Boards carry out these operational functions based in many different types departments, but our understanding at a national level is opaque. Our ambition then in summary, is to be better placed for the next pandemic and to be better able to effectively plan and understand how we want the NHS in Scotland to strategically look at:
• Capital planning for medical devices in Scotland
• Procurement for medical devices
• Servicing and maintenance

Prior to the pandemic, the reality was that at a national level, we believed that we have over 250,000 pieces of medical equipment, we didn’t know how many ventilators we had, how often they are serviced, where they were, what condition they are in, when it is planned to replace them, how much we could save if we bought collectively compared to 18 times (14 Territorials and 4 Special Boards).

Project Objectives
There are four key objectives for the review:
• To create a requirements document covering the essential system details to enable the procurement of a suitable solution;
• To procure a suitable system;
• To create and deliver an implementation plan, including training; and
• To engage appropriately with all interested parties for maximum intelligence and compliance.

Outline Project Deliverables and/or Desired Outcomes
• Recruitment of project staff including a Sponsor, Project Manager, Project Support Officer, and two Data Analysts
• Recruitment of a National Manager of the system
• A requirement defined in a document for the procurement of a system
• An agreed approach to use for procurement
• A procurement process leading to a contract with one supplier for an initial period of 3 years
• A well-defined transition plan to move all Health Boards to the new national system
• A testing plan from the supplier and from each Health Board
• An agreed plan for the governance of the system when it goes live
• An agreed plan for how the nomenclature for the national system will be utilised in a common process, making use of GMDN for categorisation
• Creation of all relevant project documentation, including, but not limited to: Project Initiation Document, Risk & Issue Log, Data Protection Impact Assessment, Equalities and Fairer Scotland Impact Assessment, Communications Plan, and a Project Plan