Autumn Study Day 2024

The Principle Decontamination Engineer working within the specialist team at NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership/Specialist Estates Services. His role is dedicated to all aspects of decontamination/reprocessing techniques of medical devices. John is a member of a team that provides validation services, advice and guidance to Health Boards/Trusts within Wales and works closely with Welsh governmental departments to deliver policy and strategy in this unique and often complex field.

John has worked within the NHS in Wales for the past 35 years.

In 2012 John completed the ACIST course (qualifying course for Authorised Engineer – Decontamination) and was formally accepted onto the IHEEM register as an Authorised Engineer (Decontamination) late 2013.

He was a member and Officer of the CSC committee between 2011 and 2022, recently taking up the position of Chair in April 2024.

He finds his work challenging in very difficult times, financial restrictions within the NHS, changing guidance and increasing accountability to Healthcare organisations provide the ultimate quandary.

Dr Gavin Hughes is a microbiologist with over 30 years’ experience in researching and testing medical devices.

As Director of the Surgical Materials Testing Laboratory (SMTL) he works closely with Welsh NHS Procurement Services and clinicians, assessing the safety and efficacy of medical devices tendered for Welsh NHS Contracts and investigating medical device adverse incidents for the Welsh NHS.

Gavin sits on several British and European Standard committees and is the editor of the BSi working group that drafted the British Standard BS 661210 on Compression Garments as well as editing the CEN revision of the performance standard for surgical dressings. Gavin represents the Welsh Government on a number of medical device groups and committees and is a member of the All-Wales Decontamination and Sterilisation Group that advises Welsh Government on aspects of decontamination, cleaning and sterilisation of healthcare associated equipment.

Pat is the Associate Director Infection Prevention and Control and Decontamination Lead at University
Hospitals Sussex. Formerly infection prevention lead at Royal Marsden, Past President of the Infection
Prevention Society, winner of the British Journal of Nursing, Infection Prevention Nurse of the Year 2017,
author of the IPC Chapter in 10 th Edition of the ‘Marsden Manual’.

Pat has worked in IPC for 31 years, in both acute, specialist and community settings with extensive experience in all aspects of IPC including building design, refurbishment, environmental hygiene, decontamination, water hygiene, ventilation, surgical site infection management etc.

Pat was the IPC nursing representative on the CJD Incidents panel from 2003-2009.

Dr.Ir.ing Tim Horeman is Associate Professor in Sustainable Surgery & Translational Technology and Academic Portfolio Director (APD)-Medical technology (extension school 3.0) at the Delft University of technology. Tim has ample experience in objective assessment of surgical skills and surgical instrument functioning based on interaction force, instrument motion and other data sources. Lately, Tim is leading the development of a new generation of sustainable surgical instruments for advanced (robot) surgery that should foster the introduction of more functional instruments in less wealthy parts of the world, as it is essential to bring life saving surgical innovations in reach of our surgeons and healthcare workers.

Tim became a distinguished serial Medtech Entrepreneur with a strong focus on sustainable surgical devices and evidence based implementation studies. As such, he is PI and (co) founder of the international operating companies GreenCycl, MediShield & ForceSense/LapRon, Surge-on Medical and SuperSeton that brought multiple innovations to the worldwide market of surgical equipment. Tim is (co) author of over 100 journal publications, inventor on 18 patent (families) and PI on multiple international research projects in the field of surgical instrument waste processing, SMART implants, global instruments and Minimally Invasive Surgery. In 2016, Tim was awarded with the Dutch (royal) engineer of the year award for his contributions to the healthcare society and in 2018 and 2022 Tim was (re) elected as Tech Committee member of the European Association of Endoscopic Surgery.

Jim contributes knowledge as a Head of Estates within the NHS for 20 years, and overall NHS experience of 30 years. Having recently completed the AED competency framework and consequently added to the AE(D) register. James is now running a limited company providing AE(D) services and consultancy to healthcare organisations in the UK and EU.

Trevor has worked in decontamination of medical devices since 1984 and has held various management roles within decontamination and been involved in the design and building of two Decontamination units for Sterile services and endoscopy. He was also a General manager at Surrey and Sussex Trust responsible for the clinical services division managing HCS and AHP personnel.

From 2011 to 2017 he was IDSc Director of Education and was the IDSc lead for the development of the HCS Assistant (level2) and HCS Associate (level4) in collaboration with HEE and Pearsons. He retired from the NHS in 2019 and set up his own consultancy business and has been involved in many aspects of decontamination over the past 5 years. Since November 2022 he has been the National Chairman of the IDSc and is working hard with the team of directors and council representatives to ensure the IDSc becomes the ‘go to’ organisation for all healthcare professionals including government bodies.  His passion is to ensure all decontamination staff are educated, trained and competent and have a career pathway to inspire new leaders so decontamination practices are at the highest standards to protect the patient.

Joined the NHS at Queens hospital Burton Upon Trent in 1991 as part of the domestic/housekeeping team. Whilst employed within this role one of the departments that benefitted from this service was Sterile Services; this was my introduction into the world of decontamination.

Following this I was taken on as one of the technicians within SSD for many years followed with a family relocation to the south coast of England. I was lucky enough to continue my work within SSD at St.Richards Hospital in Chichester.

I have been very fortunate that this opportunity has led to progression for myself in the field of decontamination within my trust from a technician role through to managing 2 x Sterile Services, 2 x Equipment Library over 4 hospital sites.

Throughout the past 33 years I have gained an immense amount of knowledge and experience whilst working alongside many amazing people.

I am excited to be a member of the CSC committee and have the chance to share and continue to grow my knowledge and expertise.

Institute of Decontamination Sciences (IDSc) Chartered Member.

Institute of Health Estates & Engineering Management (IHEEM) Full Member

Infection Prevention Society (IPS) Member

NHS England End Point Assessor (EPA) Decontamination.

Authorised Person Decontamination AP(D)

Served in the Royal Air Force (RAF) as an Aircraft Electrical Engineer for 23 years (79 – 02), on leaving RAF joined Lancer UK as a Service Engineer, acquiring full test person qualifications on Washer Disinfectors, Endoscope Washer Disinfectors and Porous Load Sterilisers, Tony took over as Service Manager for Lancer UK, a position he held until Lancer UK were acquired by Getinge, Tony served as Service Customer Care and Compliance Manager for Getinge, during this time Tony also studied and obtained his Degree in Decontamination in 2014.

Joined the NHS November 2015 as Decontamination Manager at Cumberland Infirmary, 2016 saw Tony become head of Medical Engineering and Decontamination for North Cumbria University Trust.

Transferred to Durham and Darlington Trust as Decontamination Manager in 2018 and served there for two years, during Covid an opportunity came up to head up an External Environmental Decontamination team to train staff in a wide variety of venues in how to combat the Covid virus, culminating in Managing the Decontamination teams at the Commonwealth games.

Recently completed terms of office for IDSc as Director of Communications and Interim Chairperson and is still active within the IDSc as part of the Education Team. Recently started his own company ‘All Things Decontamination (ATD) Ltd’ as a Decontamination Consultant providing, advice, support, and training on all aspects of Decontamination.

HSDU Manager at the Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, Exeter, Devon.

Jon began his working career supporting his father’s business as a Landscape Gardener alongside serving as an Infantryman in the Headquarters Company of the 4^th Battalion, Devon & Dorset Regiment, specialising as a signalman.

Following this he joined the Daily Mail Group Newspaper organisation, working for the Northcliffe Press – Southwest Ltd as a newspaper printer. Working with noisy machinery, being hands on with problem solving and working to extremely tight deadlines (sound familiar?), highlighted the importance of attention to detail and in not letting your customers down. Printing required a good eye for detail, carefully balancing the colour adjustments and registration of a typical four-colour off-set printing press, to produce a premium product to help ‘pop’ the headlines off the front page. This role also taught lessons in managing stock, industrial health & safety and first aid considerations as well as managing chemistries required for the printing process and post-print clean up.

Although sharing no obvious cross-overs, these were all useful attributes and life lessons, which Jon took into beginning his career in Decontamination, following redundancy as the decline in the print media gathered pace. Jon joined the Sterile Services department at the Royal Devon & Exeter NHS Foundation Trust (as it was then), in 2005 as an HSDU Technician. Here he became the first in the unit to complete the new-fangled National Vocational Qualification, Level 3 in Healthcare (Decontamination), alongside learning the names and functions of many hundreds of surgical instruments for multi-disciplinary clinical procedures.

Jon became a Senior Technician after 2 years in Sterile Services, successfully leading his team through the rigours of conflicting theatre demands and going on to be successfully appointed as an HSDU Production Manager a further five years later. Jon held this role for eight years before stepping up to head the department in 2020 just as the pandemic hit. He’s been playing ‘catch up’ ever since!

Professor Ian Walker is an environmental psychologist at Swansea University. He looks at people’s behaviour across a range of applications including transport, energy consumption and water consumption. He focuses particularly on how behaviour can be shaped by ‘hidden’, unconscious influences such as habits, social norms and the environment that surrounds people. He is currently the project leader for a major UKRI research project on how future buildings might be made more sustainable through better understanding how they affect their occupants. Ian has long-standing experience working with or advising government (Department for Transport, DEFRA, BEIS, Welsh Government, etc) and industry.

He is psychology lead for the VSimulators building motion simulators and has worked extensively on in-home displays for energy and water that take end-user understanding into account. He also has a long-standing interest in choices and behaviours around sustainable active travel. See more here