‘Serviced’ does not mean ’Certified’

Too often I hear people say they get their ceiling hoists ‘serviced’ with a local or known supplier. This is simply because the company or individual also performs servicing for their beds, bed movers, kitchen trolleys and any other mechanical or electronic equipment their facility can group together.

Grouping equipment together to save on servicing costs makes complete sense. However, the problem is a ‘ceiling hoist’ falls into a completely different category.

The reason is a simple an critical one. A technician or organisation who installs a ceiling hoist in Australia must abide to the Australian standard of AS/NZS ISO 10535:2011. These standards are set in place for your safety and the safety of residents or users.

This standard stipulates an installed ceiling hoist must be inspected at least once a year in accordance to specific requirements. The key word here is “inspected”. An inspection must cover testing all the functions of the hoist and weight testing – up to 1.5x the maximum system rated safe working load (SWL)* – across all drop/installation points to the soffit, timber framing or engineered supporting structure.

A general periodic inspection record must be kept with the owner of the hoist – including the certified inspectors’ details and signature. If any safety issues arise from the inspection the owner or organisation must be notified, and the system must be mandatorily suspended from service until repairs are made. All necessary repairs must also be documented in the inspection report if and when approved.

As you can see, servicing an electronic hoist does not ‘certify’ your ceiling hoist system.

All too often we are asked to do urgent re-certification inspections for hoists in facilities where the management assumed they were ‘covered’ because they had them ‘serviced’ by a 3^rd party company who perhaps advised they could service the unit based on assumption and ignorance as to what ‘servicing’ actually means in accordance to AS/NZS ISO 10535:2011. These facilities then fail accreditation until the situation is rectified. Worse still, accidents and injuries, even fatalities, become a much larger risk.

So, ‘servicing’ and ‘certifying’ are not the same thing.

My father is a retired signal electrician. He has over 40 years’ experience on the railways and could ‘service’ a ceiling hoist. However, this will not make him – or your ceiling hoist system – ‘certified’.

In addition, all Guldmann hoists manufactured since 2009 have software update capabilities or requirements. This software update can only be performed by Guldmann certified technicians – another important factor to ensure the effective functioning of Guldmann hoists on an annual basis.

If you have concerns about your ceiling hoist system certification or would like to enquire about an annual inspection please contact HLS Healthcare on 1300 931 893

Blog by Todd MacRae

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*AS/NZS ISO 10535:2011 and other legislative conditions apply