Medstor is midway through a major project forming part of the redevelopment of the Royal Victoria in Belfast, one of four linked hospitals on Northern Ireland’s largest hospital complex.
Medstor is the only company contracted to supply modular storage systems to the Northern Ireland Health and Social Care Service.
It was first awarded the contract for the implementation of electronic materials management over 15 years ago and has held it consistently ever since.
In the many years that it has been working with the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, which operates the Royal Victoria, Medstor has been involved in five major new-build projects on the complex, as well as many refurbishments, establishing an outstanding relationship with the trust that now extends to hospitals across the whole of the country.
After completing work on the accident and emergency department, including fitting out an interim A&E to operate during building work, Medstor moved on to the new critical care building, due to open in 2016. The building is equipped throughout with Medstor’s practical and stylish HTM 71 storage cabinets, designed to eliminate stock-outs and allow for easy location of goods. The cabinets integrate with the Medstor system of liners and trays, and fit seamlessly to improve hygiene, creating the most-productive working environment for healthcare staff.
The cabinets have been supplied with label holders for the clear and safe identification and arrangement of products.
Controlled drug safes, long-span shelving for bulk storage, and a wide selection of trolleys, each one designed for a specific purpose and environment, are among the other equipment Medstor has installed. As staff at the hospital are used to working with Medstor products, the training necessary to use the new equipment has been minimal, helping the transition to the new building to go as smoothly as possible.
Heather Lowry, commissioning nurse for theatres and critical care at the trust, said of the service and products Medstor supplied: “We have used Medstor storage systems extensively throughout the critical care building and are extremely impressed with the professional service and expert advice we have received from Medstor, from the initial procurement through to the installation and follow up.
“The commissioning of the new A&E was particularly challenging due to the limited time between the handover of the building and the planned opening of the department in August 2015.
The Medstor installation team worked closely with the commissioning team to co-ordinate the delivery and installation of the furniture to fit in with all the other commissioning activities going on at the time. The work was completed on time and to a very high standard, ready to be stocked up for the department to open.
“The Medstor units installed in the A&E have enabled the clinical team to improve the way it stores and manages consumable goods, with essential supplies being stored in a well-organised and easily-accessible manner.”
Over the 20 years Medstor has been working with the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, hospitals on the complex and associated health and wellbeing centres run in local community clinics have used a broad range of Medstor’s materials management solutions, ranging from trolleys to shelving systems to different colourways for different areas, all with great success. The ingenuity and effectiveness of Medstor’s design-led solutions means the company continues to be the preferred choice across the complex, supporting a trust that treats over a million patients each year.
The longevity of the systems and products has led to this continued roll-out of best practice across all five trusts in Northern Ireland, each of which has full confidence in Medstor to provide exactly what it needs. Medstor also worked with Northern Ireland’s Procurement and Logistics Service (PaLS) to develop its barcode-based electronic materials management system: its products are fully compatible with the electronic system, and are a prerequisite to its implementation in every healthcare facility in the region.
