Going, going, gone

The disposal of obsolete or unwanted diagnostic equipment has become a major headache to many organisations recently in the wake of strict new waste regulations, however one company have found a unique solution to the problem

THE WASTE Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive came into force in January 2007 with the aim to both reduce the amount of WEEE being produced and to encourage organisations to reuse, recycle and recover it. The WEEE Directive also aims to improve the environmental performance of businesses that manufacture, supply, use, recycle and recover electrical and electronic equipment. As a result of WEEE, simply disposing of unwanted apparatus such as diagnostic and other laboratory equipment has now become a major cause for concern. Help, however, is now at hand in the shape of Hilditch Auctioneers, who not only assist organisations to identify and decommission redundant, surplus equipment, but dispose of it efficiently whilst also generating substantial funds for their clients in the process.

Hilditch Auctions was established 18 years ago by Mike Hilditch who,  following his involvement in a number of auction practices where he sold everything from cows to cars, saw an opportunity to establish his own commercial saleroom. Mike, along with his wife Nicky, was therefore able to bring a wealth of knowledge on how to run a salesroom and, perhaps more importantly, how not to run one. As he explains: “The Hilditch mantra is look after the vendor and be honest to the buyer. Auctions hold a unique position and should be a conduit for trade. I hate the reputation that some auctioneers have earned as ‘dodgy dealers’ and have tried to bring integrity to the market place. That is why 75% of all acute NHS Hospitals in England and Wales now use Hilditch to dispose of their surplus equipment which including their laboratory diagnostics.

“We very quickly identified a need for medical sales when we were requested to clear a hospital kitchen in Bristol and found that it was, in fact, a hospital clearance and they were discarding various items of medical equipment, which to my eyes was criminal. Around that time, most hospitals disposed of their surplus equipment, or, worse, paid dealers to take it away. This was particularly true of radiography equipment such as CT and MRI scanners. It still astounds me that a hospital would happily pay £10,000 to a dealer to dispose of a CT scanner which cost upward of £500,000 to purchase new”.

Mike considers that it has been a long journey to date to convince hospitals not to throw good equipment away, as he outlines. “Many Trusts still scrap all their equipment, regardless of condition. Thankfully, however, there is an increasingly vibrant second user market for all these types of equipment.  For example, we have just cleared the pathology laboratory at Pinderfields Hospital, Yorkshire. As part of this process, we were called in to clear the older equipment. This amounted to a quantity of excellent quality microscopes, as well as 30 centrifuges, 70 fridges, blood analysers and laboratory benching”. Mike considers that certain types of laboratory equipment are very keenly sought after at the moment; especially microscopes. “The market for analysers has also improved in recent years and we now sell 4 or 5 per month. Our overseas buyers, in particular, come to us because we can offer an enormous volume of equipment. Our next sale will contain 50 endoscopes, 30 anaesthetic machines, incubators, diathermy, operating tables, theatre lights and even hospital beds”.

Recently, Hilditch has developed a new online auction site; this is ideally suited to better quality equipment and permits overseas buyers to bid in real time for some of the best lots on offer. Unlike other auction sites, hilditchauctions.co.uk offers advice on equipment and potential purchasers can talk to the Hilditch medical engineer to obtain condition reports courtesy of the company’s new medical engineering department. But it is in the area of WEEE legislation in particular that Mike considers that the equipment recycling potential to laboratories and similar facilities should not be underestimated.

“WEEE legislation should not concern organisations, who instead should look upon it as an opportunity. Manufacturers and recycling companies would have us all believe that we should start panicking and sign up either to ridiculously expensive recycling schemes with waste companies, or pay more for our equipment in order that the manufacturer will assume responsibility. The fact is that manufacturers have to offer a recycling service, for which they can charge their customers. They therefore add several per cent on top of the purchase price, which customers shouldn’t pay in my view. For instance if you buy an ultrasound for £100,000 the manufacturer may charge you 2% recycling up front, in other words £2,000. In 5 years time, had you invested the £2,000 you would have earned approximately £650 in interest. After 5 years, the ultrasound will be worth £6,000 on the open market and, even if it no longer works, it would cost a maximum of £50 to recycle. So, never pay for recycling – unless it is a nuclear power station! Of course, manufacturers love to get their old equipment back – if it is still working they will refurbish it and sell it on, or perhaps cannibalise it for spares. Always think therefore of re-using your equipment, organisations such as Hilditch will be only too pleased to sell any redundant equipment for you. Failing that, Hilditch also offer a very reasonably priced recycling service for those items that are just not saleable”. 

Overseas Aid

Hilditch invariably ship most of their equipment sales overseas to developing countries, something Mike believes provides a much needed service to these regions. “At our large medical sales we can expect buyers from 12 –15 countries on average. At our last sale we had buyers from Somalia, Iraq, Sudan, Nigeria, Uganda, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, as well as buyers from Greece, Turkey, Germany and France. The equipment is then shipped overseas to hospitals in need of it”.

As a result of this activity, the company has recently become involved in a charitable organisation known as ‘The Amalthea Trust’, as Mike explains. “This is a new charity established by us to train medical engineers in Africa. The Amalthea Trust was established when it became apparent that, although large quantities of equipment were being shipped to developing countries, often they did not have the resources or expertise to maintain them. This has resulted in many pieces of medical equipment languishing unused. As a result, Hilditch Auctioneers have recently donated a new Rigel 266 safety tester to the Mbarara Hospital in Northern Uganda. The Ugandan hospital has been assisted over the years by professional staff from the Bristol Royal Infirmary. Peter Smithson, Head of Medical Engineering there and his colleagues have been assisting the fledgling medical engineering department in Mbarara, but require funds and equipment to carry on their work.  The Amalthea Trust was only too happy to help. It is hoped over the next few years to build, in association with the University of Science and Technology in Mbarara, a centre of excellence to train medical engineers.

“In a separate project, The Amalthea Trust is donating power leads to enable donated equipment to be used, and sponsoring a major project to develop the medical engineering department at the Mulago Hospital, Kampala. We are therefore very excited about our overseas projects in Uganda, but look upon this as only the first step. Without the skills to maintain equipment, be it laboratory or theatre equipment, hospitals in Africa will never be able to fully function and lives will continue to be lost”.

As for the future, Mike Hilditch and his colleagues believe that the way forward involves more recycling of old diagnostic and laboratory equipment and less scrapping. “Currently, we collect equipment for 75% of the NHS Acute Hospitals, but there are still 40 Acute Hospital Trusts that still dump all their unwanted equipment. Because of this, one of our priorities is to encourage them to go green and to stop dumping. Although we at Hilditch are responsible for establishing the second user medical market in the UK, we are still far behind the US – we would therefore like to see more equipment bought as well as sold here in the UK. Even when we have equipment that is just a year old and barely used, we are unable to persuade bodies such as the NHS to buy it, even though individuals within the Trust could use the equipment and save many thousands of pounds.  With the onset of the WEEE legislation for the disposal of electrical items, we have campaigned to encourage re-use, as this is far greener than recycling. However, many manufacturers, in particular of medical equipment have made it difficult to sell on equipment by withholding information on how to service equipment as well as pass codes for reprogramming hard drives after deleting patient records and other information. It is therefore not in their own interests to encourage a secondary market, Hilditch will be campaigning however to make such practices illegal from now on. It is the duty of all manufacturers to encourage the longevity of their equipment.”