We now have a whole new department added to the ever growing scalesonline catalogue!
Through a new partnership with one of our existing suppliers, we are now able to offer a complete range of medical scales specifically designed for use in hospitals, surgeries, health centres or anywhere else that patient weighing is essential.
Through this continued growth we aim to assist even more customers with our consistently high levels of customer satisfaction.
Patients at hospitals throughout the UK could be at risk because staff are using faulty weighing equipment. In one case, hospital staff used defective bathroom scales to weigh a four-year-old cancer patient in order to calculate her radiation dosage.
Now trading standards officers are to check scales at hospitals after initial visits found many were inaccurate.
They also found equipment was missing and staff did not have access to the right scales for specific tasks.
In the case of the four-year-old cancer patient the error was spotted in time.
But there are fears that others are receiving wrong dosages due to faulty equipment.
The National Medical Weighing Project will run for one year, starting in April.
Staff training
Officers will check that all weighing equipment is accurate, legal and fit for purpose, focusing particularly on cancer and children’s’ departments.
They will also ensure that staff are properly trained.
Councillor Geoffrey Theobald, chairman of the Local Authorities Coordinators of Regulatory Services (LACORS), said: “Going into hospital for treatment can be a worrying time for many people, and it is important that patients have full confidence that they are being given the right dose of medicine or other treatments.
“The new National Medical Weighing Project will give patients the peace of mind that they are receiving the correct level of medication and will help hospitals iron out any problems involving the accuracy of their weighing equipment.”
The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health said it was “extremely concerned”.
Dr Simon Lenton, the college’s vice president for health services, said: “It is vital that both height and weight are correctly calculated when determining appropriate drug dosages.
“Children metabolise drugs differently from adults and therefore it is crucial that accurate measuring equipment is being used.”
A Department of Health spokesperson said: “It is for each local NHS trust to determine the equipment they require to provide safe services to their patients.
“Patient safety and appropriate clinical care is of the utmost importance. We would expect clinicians to use the right equipment and not compromise patient safety.”
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Buying a scale can be a complicated task as there are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of different type scales out on the market today. With a little bit of help and assistance it neednt be too difficult though.
The first thing you need to do is decide what items or products your scale is going to be weighing. This involves knowing roughly what your heaviest item is going to be, combined with how small the divisions you need the scale to go up in. You will also need to know how large the item is that you are going to be weighing.
With this information to hand you can then begin looking at the various different types of scale out there.
One common misconception is that you can have a single scale for weighing absolutely anything. This, quite simply, is incorrect as we could never recommend using a pallet scale to weigh letters, or vice versa.
Typically a scale weighs to 3000 divisions. For instance a 3000 gram scale would go up in 1 gram increments, a 6000 gram scale would weigh in 2 gram increments, a 3000Kg scale would weigh in 1Kg increments. This certainly applies to most scales but isnt a rule for all. As an example, the Ultra75 weighs up to 34Kgs but in as small an increment as 5 grams. This is because it has been designed to cover as many applications as possible giving it a broader user base and therefore making it less expensive.
Scales that are to be used in shops where you will be selling by weight need to be trade approved. An example of this is when a sweet shop owner sells 100 grams of sweets to his customers. Because you are declaring that there is a certain amount of product on that scale then you need to prove that it is accurate to a certain standard. These would normally be sold as Trade Approved, Weights & Measures Approved or Class III Approved. These all mean the same thing, and that is that they conform to a standard which says that they are accurate enough to be selling on. Medical scales, generally used in surgeries or hospitals, also need to be Class III approved.
We hope this article was of some use to you and assists you in being able to choose the right scale for you. However we are always available for more information or advice. Please feel free to visit http://www.scalesonline.co.uk for the latest information and offerings.
Since manufacturers first hit on the idea of combining a pallet truck with a weighing scale, the industry has grown and grown and increased competition has meant that prices have come down across the whole range of trucks that weigh. But what do you get for your money? Chinese imports are commonplace, but are they a good investment? A side-by-side comparison will likely show that the build quality of the import is substantially lower than their UK-built counterparts. At first glance, buyers may think they are getting a Mettler Toledo display on the import, but a closer look will reveal that the display is just a poor imitation and if it should fail or start giving problems, no service or support is available in the UK – basically, its the end of the road for the whole truck. And with the typically shorter working lives these imports have, what looked like a bargain at the time of purchase could turn out to be an expensive per-day or per-weigh piece of equipment in your workplace.
At ScalesOnline, we have been building pallet truck scales for over 20 years. Our trucks are built to a high quality standard so that you can rely on them to give years and years of service. A powder-coated finish and rubber steer-wheels are standard. We build our trucks here in the UK and keep on-the-shelf stocks of all parts, so if a problem or mishap should occur, we can get your truck up and running again at a fraction of the cost of a new one. A quality truck built in the UK (like those available from ScalesOnline) can still be going strong in your workplace in 10 years time – that is a cost of just 11p per day! Especially in todays economy, thats the sort of value for money everyone needs!
