Mediquip turns training into action at COVID-19 units

Across the country, it's a growing challenge for companies to make vital deliveries and install equipment to help reduce the load on hospitals and critical care facilities. When Gallions View Care home in Greenwich was being set up as a specialist centre for COVID-19 patients to ease the burden on the local hospital and other care facilities, the local Medequip team based at Woolwich turned training into action and was tasked with installing beds and associated items to equip 30 care rooms.

Medequip Centre of Excellence trainer Paul Cockburn proposed a novel solution. "With 10 trainees on my cohort at our training centre in Woolwich, it seemed like an excellent idea to put their studies and knowledge to good use in support of our team on the ground," said Paul. "Following discussions and planning with our local operational team, it was decided to mobilise our newest technicians to complete the work." 
 
The equipment was delivered in to the care home, some of it directly from suppliers and some from Medequip's Woolwich depot. At 9 o'clock on 7 April, the team of trainees began work; no special PPE was needed as the facility was empty, awaiting its first patients. By lunchtime they had successfully installed a total of 30 Accora floor beds (low level profiling beds) and mattresses, commodes, overbed tables and high back chairs as well as two mobile hoists and two floor standing hoists, and the rooms were ready to admit their first patients. 

Following the success of this initiative, the team of trainees has been in action again, this time at Time Court in Charlton, a care unit with COVID-19 patients already on the wards. Here, Medequip took extra care with government-approved PPE, maintaining strict distancing from patients and staff. Within one and a half hours four beds had been installed complete with siderails, mattresses and two hoists, all ready for use with minimal disruption to the work on the unit. A spokesperson from the unit commented: "Medequip arrived in force to deliver the beds. Very professional, like a military operation; they were briefed outside and came in two by two, directed to the individual rooms, all went like clockwork."

"At Medequip, we're very proud of our teams around the country who are handling an increased workload to ensure vulnerable people continue to get the support they need and to help with hospital discharges," stated Medequip's MD David Griffiths. "This is a great example of the Medequip team at its very best, working together for the good of our service users, using ingenuity and expertise to make sure we can match the new challenges we are currently facing on a daily basis."

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