Medical physics

The Clinical Engineering Service provides a comprehensive equipment management service, supports research involving medical devices and provides technical support services to critical care wards.

Clinical Engineering is the gateway for all medical equipment within the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS trust. Our team includes equipment management, critical care support, development of bespoke medical devices and software, and a mechanical workshop. Clinical Engineering forms part of Medical Physics.

• Medical Physics Equipment Management Service (MEMS): provides comprehensive technical support for medical equipment covering all aspects of the equipment lifecycle. From pre-purchase advice, to maintenance contracts, and disposal. All medical devices brough into the University Hospitals of Leicester must be submitted to MEMS for acceptance and safety testing before being put into clinical use. The equipment management service also includes equipment inventory records, user training, repairs, checking/recording of load equipment, incident investigation and, safety upgrads and advice. MEMS is an ISO accredited service.
• Clinical Engineering Development and Mechanical Workshop: specialise in the provision/manufacture of bespoke hardware and software solutions for clinical applications, to your specification. This includes mechanical/electronic engineering, software design, database development, and assistance with the modification of existing equipment for research projects. We are able to offer expert advice and help on your own research projects, with respect to build specifications, compliance with medical device standards, and its final implementation into the clinical environment. We can advise on IT issues relating to the networking of medical devices, also to data extraction for research purposes.

Recent projects include:

• Medical Equipment Library Database ‘MELS’
• Compartmental pressure measurements for Sports Medicine
• Occlusion Dose Monitors to measure compliance for young patients with Amblyopia
• Design and implementation of passive RFID audit system for medical devices.
• Provision of active RFID tagging to medical devices.

Critical Care: Our technicians offer support on the following units: Children’s Intensive Care and Paediatric High Dependency; Neonatal; Adult Intensive Care and Adult High Dependency. They also provide specialist services to the Emergency Department and the Delivery Suite. The technician on each unit provides technical and educational support to the nursing and medical staff including dealing with technical problems at the patients’ bedside, routine maintenance, calibration and quality assurance of equipment.

Contact details

If you have any questions about medical devices, please contact the Clinical Engineering Team on 0116 258 5605.

Working hours: We are available between 9.00 and 17.30 Monday to Friday.

The Nuclear Medicine Service provides a range of diagnostic imaging techniques and therapeutic procedures involving radionuclide’s to manage and treat medical conditions, using state of the art imaging equipment.

Find out more on the Nuclear Medicine service pages.

Leicester Radiation Safety Service (LRSS) provides scientific and technical support for the use of ionising (x-rays, radionuclides, radiotherapy) and non-ionising (lasers, MR, ultrasound and ultraviolet) radiation. Radiation may be used in the Trust for diagnosis, treatment and research.

This service is provided to all NHS organisations as well as local businesses in Leicestershire, through specialised certificated advisers. The service is registered with the British Standards Institute (BSI) as meeting the standards of ISO 9002.

We provide services dealing with both ionising and non-ionising radiation, outlined below:

Ionising services:

• Radiation Protection advice
• Workplace radiation dose surveys
• Calibration of contamination monitors and dose-rate meters
• Acceptance testing and quality assurance of diagnostic x-ray equipment
• Radiation room design and protection specification
• Patient dose calculation and measurements
• Legislation Advice
• Staff training in radiation safety and legislation compliance
• Assistance in performing radiation risk assessments
• Assistance in writing local rules
• Provision of radiation dosimeters for whole body and extremity monitoring of external radiation

Non-ionising services:

• Laser Protection advice
• Laser safety training audits and advice
• Laser room designs and protection specification
• Advice in compliance with Artificial Optical Radiation legislation
• Ultraviolet (UV) safety information and advice
• Ultrasound quality assurance and safety advice
• MRI quality assurance and safety advice
• Research and development projects

 Radiation safety services are also made available to a number of external organisations and other NHS Trusts.

Medical Physics Clinical Measurement services provide: 

• Visual Electrophysiology testing, scientific and technical services to Ophthalmology
• Newborn Hearing Screening to all newborn babies for hearing response within the first 3 months of being born.
• Urodynamics technical services to urology, uro-gynaecology and paediatric departments.
•  Ankle Brachial Pressure Index testing at the Leicester General Hospital for all departments.

Research support is provided through our links with the University of Leicester.

The Clinical Measurements Division of Medical Physics has over 35 years experience in Urodynamics. It provides a Urodynamics service for the departments of Urology and Uro-gynaecology at the Leicester General Hospital and the Children’s Hospital at Leicester Royal Infirmary.

Patients suffering from bladder dysfunction are referred for diagnosis to out patient clinics run by medical staff and nurse specialists. Fully trained Medical Physics Technicians provide comprehensive monitoring and technical support by operating the computerised diagnostic test equipment. Bladder and abdominal pressures are recorded along with infused and voided volumes during the process of bladder filling and emptying to assess bladder function. The test would normally take 30-45 minutes to perform.  It involves the placement by our clinical colleagues of a small catheter, used to fill the bladder and record the pressures, and another catheter is placed in the rectum or vagina, to record abdominal pressures. Great care is taken by our staff to preserve the dignity of the patients during this potentially embarrassing procedure. For more complex cases Urodynamics may be performed in X-ray where the bladder can be simultaneously screened.

For adults the tests are mainly arranged for females with stress and/or urge incontinence and for males with frequency and/or urgency and low flow rates which affects bladder emptying. The test results would indicate the need for further conservative management, drug therapy or surgery.

Paediatric Urodynamics may be performed on children of all ages, and is combined with screening of the bladder by X-ray. Urodynamic assessment for children is carried out either to assess known neuropathy, to ensure the bladder is safe for renal health, or to diagnose outflow problems in children and young people who present with complex symptoms and who fail to respond to first line approaches. The investigation is always led by a qualified Children’s Urology Nurse Specialist.

The Visual Electrophysiology Service are a small team of staff from the Medical Physics Department provide the Visual Electrophysiology Service (formerly Electrodiagnostic service) for the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust (UHL).  This includes clinical scientists, a vision specialist practitioner, a staff nurse, an advanced optometrist and a clinic coordinator. 

Read more about the service on the Visual Electrophysiology page.