Category: News

We are excited to announce that PLH Medical has been appointed the sole partner in the UK Veterinary market for the sales of Agfa conventional and digital imaging products.

The UK digital imaging market has changed significantly over the last few years and the time was right to appoint a dedicated partner to provide Agfa imaging products in the pursuit of customer excellence.

We have invested heavily and been a progressive partner to Agfa for over 25 years. PLH Medical Ltd has a proven track record in customer service and continual innovation aligned with Agfa’s leading-edge product range.

Moving forward PLH Medical will be the only authorised distribution channel for Agfa sales in the veterinary market.

What are the benefits of a dedicated imaging partner?

Every PLH Medical engineer receives specific and ongoing product and support training to become certified as an Agfa approved service partner.

Access to an Agfa-certified engineer via our dedicated call centre to assist and identify necessary parts prior to an engineer attending.

By choosing a service plan with PLH Medical we will honour your warranty term and provide the very latest software and important safety updates.

We thank you all for your support, without our loyal customers this would not be possible! Here’s to many more years of growth and new opportunities!

Here at PLH Medical we are passionate about our impact on the environment, today we’re joining millions of people around the world to celebrate Earth Day and raise awareness of little steps everyone can take to reduce their footprint!

Changes wont happen magically overnight, it is something we all need to focus on and remember every little helps getting us towards a healthier planet and environment for the future generations.

Not all of us have the time to go to protests, volunteer overseas or do drastic actions, but all of us have the time for little actions that can make a big difference! Here’s just a few suggestions.

Support the Great Global Cleanup

Pick up trash while enjoying your outdoor activities, it doesn’t have to be a whole bag full, remember, you could be the difference between that bottle ending up in landfill or being recycled! So next time you’re out and about why not take an extra piece of rubbish home with you.

Enjoy food?

Another way to reduce your footprint and help the earth, is to switch to plant-based meals, it doesn’t have to be every meal, try participating in #MeatlessMondays and switch your meals just one day a week! Even such a small change can make a difference. Need some meal inspiration? Check out some tasty plant-based recipes.

Cats out the bag!

Reducing your footprint doesn’t even need you to change your routine, one thing we all do is shopping! Switch your bags out and use reusable eco-friendly shopping bags, if you drive to the store keep some in your car, this way there will be no need to buy a plastic bag at the store, saving you money and reducing plastic waste!

Water while you work

You can even help the environment whilst you work! Invest in a reusable water bottle, it’s such a small change but in the long run it will have a big impact on reducing plastic waste.

And the small change that everyone should do?

Turn off the lights when you leave the room!

These are just a few things everyone can do to make a difference and prepare the world for a healthier tomorrow. If you want to learn more about what you can do to support the environment, head over to earthday.org

In order to practise in the UK all vets must be registered with the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS). They must also have Professional Indemnity insurance. This protects them if they make a mistake that results in a customer putting in a claim against them.

PLH Medical have partnered with Tapoly, a Lloyds coverholder and authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority, to offer insurance to vets and veterinary nurses.

Want to read more? Just click the button below! 

PLH Medical are pleased to announce that to support the fight against COVID-19 we are now supplying the lateral flow CLINITEST® Rapid COVID-19 Antigen Testing Kits. These are available to purchase in boxes of 20 tests.

The entire world has been gripped by the Covid-19 pandemic and everything from our personal lives to the economy has been impacted. As a result, preventing the spread of the virus has been key and regular testing has become an integral part of curbing the spread.

To support testing the Clinitest Rapid Covid-19 Antigen Test has been designed to provide rapid results, which is crucial for businesses, education establishments and other areas to operate safely.

About Antigen Testing

Antigen testing involves identifying the presence of a protein, which is known as the nucleocapsid protein, which is found in the SARS-CoV-2 virus. This form of testing involves collecting swabs from the nose before it is placed in a special solution and then added to the testing strip.

The test will then deliver results in just 15 minutes that determine whether an individual is positive or not. These tests can then be used to help contain the spread of the virus by identifying those who are carrying the virus, regardless of whether they are symptomatic or asymptomatic. What’s more, the tests have a specificity rate of 99.22% and a sensitivity of 96.72%, ensuring that they deliver reliable results.

Clinitest Rapid Covid-19 Antigen Test

Clinitest is a trademark of Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics and the company has a history of creating healthcare solutions for a range of requirements. The company has been given the CE mark of approval for the Clinitest Rapid COVID-19 Antigen test.

Clinitest has experience in creating rapid-response tests such as their pregnancy tests, which means that the experience is far-reaching. However, with rapid results, it enables communities and businesses to actively manage the spread and quickly act where positive cases are identified.

Who Can Buy These Antigen Covid Test Kits?

The tests can be utilised across any setting or industry, enabling businesses, education, and healthcare providers to actively monitor staff and personnel. Therefore, the kits cannot be purchased for home or personal use. This is because they must be used by a trained professional who understands what the test is about and what it’s limitations might be. Furthermore, it’s important that the individual administering the test has the ability to understand the complete clinical picture once the results have been determined.

About PLH Medical Ltd

PLH Medical Ltd is now one of the leading suppliers of X-Ray imaging equipment around the world. The company was established in 1977 and now provides solutions for use in the medical setting as well as the veterinary setting. The company has worked with respected names in the healthcare industry and they place a focus on product reliability as well as value for money and customer satisfaction.

Tapoly partners with PLH Medical Ltd to provide flexible Medical Malpractice Insurance

• Up to £5 million of Medical Malpractice cover.
• Adjustable limit – pay only for what you need.
• Maximum protection with professional indemnity and public liability included.

Europe’s first on-demand insurance provider, Tapoly, partners with PLH Medical Ltd to provide Medical Malpractice Insurance – an essential cover for nurses, complementary therapists and all others in the allied healthcare professions who can now benefit from access to flexible insurance cover for damages or claims expenses incurred as a result of physical injury, death, mental injury and illness, mental anguish, disease, disability, sickness and shock of any patient.

A comprehensive policy, which has an adjustable limit, provides customers with flexibility and control over the amount that they need. It includes:

• Professional Indemnity cover in relation to any financial loss caused to third parties by negligent act, error or omission during the provision of professional services
• Public/General and Product Liability cover in relation to any bodily injury and/or property damage caused by an accident in connection with your business
• Loss of documents (destruction, damage or loss) owned or are entrusted to you
• Breach of professional confidentiality during your business
• Libel and slander committed without malice in the conduct of your business
• Inquest costs in respect of unexpected deaths which may give rise to a claim
• Good Samaritan acts where you render assistance to a passer-by not under your direct care

Janthana Kaenprakahmroy, CEO of Tapoly said: “This is another great addition to our product line as well as our partners, as we remain committed to making insurance accessible and affordable to everyone. Medical malpractice insurance is needed by workers providing medical care or ancillary services to patients, where the risks could be significant. I am delighted to partner with PLH Medical Ltd – one of the leading suppliers of X-Ray imaging equipment and solutions across its markets in the UK and internationally, and also a business that shares the same values as Tapoly”.

With over 400 professions representing industries such as technology, management consultants, marketing, media, creative, administration and healthcare on the list, Tapoly is continuously working to make sure that its products are available to as wide an audience as possible, and it remains committed to its goal of making insurance affordable and accessible to everyone.

Mike Jenkins, managing director of PLH Medical Ltd said: “We were immediately drawn to Tapoly because of their creative culture and focus. Our customers can tailor their insurance to their specific needs and only pay for insurance when they really need it, an innovation that the locum sector has needed for so long. Tapoly provides the peace of mind to worry less about the risks and for our customers to spend more time focusing on doing what they love.”

Back in 2014, I started working remotely when living in Italy. There wasn’t an office, and I had no colleagues nearby. This was a first for me, but I had managed to do it for many years.

Since then, I’ve tried many approaches. Some worked. Some were a disaster. I had even returned to an office environment two years ago when I joined PLH Medical, however, I have found myself working remotely again!

With the COVID-19 outbreak, many companies are requiring employees to work from home. It can be hard if you’ve never done it or haven’t done it regularly.

This post is about my experience. Yours will undoubtedly be different. After all, you must figure out your own rules when working from home. Since the UK lockdown, I have recently reconfigured the space in which I call my office. This is also due to my significant other now working from home which has presented different challenges such as, workspace, taking calls and such! However, it does come with its added benefits such as unlimited brew supplies and also another human being’s company.

Not everyone will have the opportunity to work alongside someone else during remote working, which is why you should be transparent with your friends, your team, and your manager about what you’re doing so you can find the best way to be productive.

Define Your Divide
Being a productive worker when being remote requires discipline, especially if you’re trying to demonstrate that you’re trustworthy and that working from home isn’t something for emergencies only. I have a dedicated working space. I have tried the couch and the dining room table, but those never worked for me. I eventually would get distracted. When you find that place, record a few minutes of audio and listen to it. You’d be surprised how much people on your conference calls can hear. I was surprised to learn that some microphones are designed to highlight background noises such as children crying or dogs barking!

I start every day the same way, which helps me transition to “work mode.” When my headphones are on, I’m working. And I wear them, even if I’m not listening to anything. I also use my laptop computer as an on/off switch. I turn it on while I’m preparing my first cup of tea in the morning, and it stays on for the rest of the day. Turning it off? That’s a signal my day is done.

Engage Your Family
Discussions surrounding working from home often focus on an employee’s relationship with their employer. But what about the family? If you’re new to working from home, understand that it doesn’t just mean change for you. It also means change for those who share the home with you. Thankfully it is just me, my significant other, an unhelpful cat and a house rabbit. However, some individuals may be working from home with small children. Find the right balance between work and home. Set work hours that you can follow, and make sure your family knows what they are. Create physical signals to let them know that you are working (these could be headphones on or a closed office door).

Working from home can be a big change if you’ve never done it before. But if you’re thoughtful about your approach, you can be productive, happy, and successful.

Our working lives have recently seen changes for a large number of us across the nation – but the emergence of COVID-19 has since led to an enormous change, more uncertainty, and new challenges for many of us. These challenges may include keeping focused when working at home or more importantly the change in our mental health during a nationwide lock down.

Keep casual and formal work moving

Structured and unstructured connections with work and colleagues must carry on whilst people are working remotely or flexibly. At PLH Medical, we regularly use video calls for all formal and non-formal discussions. This can include work-related projects or simply checking in on everybody’s well-being.
Mental health consider the entire team

We all have mental health and whatever our circumstance, this outbreak will undoubtedly have some form of impact on how we think and feel. I have discovered that having a good team bond has helped me personally and has kept my mental health in check. I find it can help simply by sending a simple ‘vibe check’ to colleagues, even if it’s a small text message or positive gif image; something to brighten their day!

Calling a colleague to discuss a project or pass information may be the only form of human interaction that you may have during these times. This is why I believe it’s important to encourage informal conversations. You may have an instant messenger or such as Microsoft Teams like us – but text messages and calls also work well. Daily check-in’s with my colleagues has always presented itself as a good idea.

Gemma Wilson
Marketing & Communications

Working remotely for the past three weeks has shown several challenges, benefits and disadvantages; all of which I will be highlighting throughout my future blog posts.

I’m very fortunate to work with a group of people who feel like a second family to me, but I can imagine the distance can make it harder for some team members to feel like an actual team. In this post I have put together a few tips that I feel have helped me through these three weeks.

Have regular live meetings

If you’re interacting with your colleagues by phone, you can’t see their faces or read their body language. This is why I try to make an effort to complement traditional emails and the use of Microsoft Teams messaging with regular video calls so I can see my colleagues! It’s also nice to say hello properly.

Allow moments for people to connect as people

When working from home you will discover that you no longer have natural opportunities to bond over lunch or after work, which means we need to be creative and create ways for members to inspire, connect and motivate each other. Last Friday at the end of the day we had some team fun on Zoom which involved a scavenger hunt for things around our homes. Sadly, I didn’t win! But it did promote exercise and provided plenty of laughs. Moments like these can make all the difference and can help increase productivity and general well-being.

Feel connected

The next communication challenge when working remotely is staying connected. How can you make sure people connected and feel like they are part of a team when working remotely? I believe the key to solving this issue is to replicate the best parts of office life, but online instead.

Office-life examples:

• it’s easy to grab lunch with a colleague and learn more about them
• it’s easy to discover what people do outside of work (hobbies, etc)
• you discover how people prefer to work when in the office

The reality is that these events listed above help people feel connected. The good news is that you can replicate many of these activities online, you just need to be intentional about it.

Remote team examples:

• Use an app like Microsoft Teams to create a ‘lunch room’ amongst your other rooms which would allow staff members to clearly show that they are on a break and are open for casual conversation.
• Run fun projects at the end of the day such as AMAs “ask me anything” sessions.
• Have employees complete a document/wiki that shares a bit more about them and what they like to do outside of work. Share these with the rest of the team.
• Have employees take a personality test and share the results with the rest of the team.

When working remotely, I feel it’s important to spend time on team-building activities where people can get to know each other. This is the most opportune time to develop stronger bonds and keep moral up.

Gemma Wilson
Marketing & Communications

In the last few weeks, working remotely has significantly increased as companies have started to encourage their staff to work from home and limit the spread of COVID-19. However, even before this pandemic, remote work was on the rise in terms of popularity.

When working remotely whether just temporarily or for the foreseeable future, technology can either help save time or become a burden. Even if you already familiar with using digital tools, you’ll likely still need to utilise new software that can streamline the remote work process. With so many things to oversee — from tracking your projects to making sure to keep in touch with other remote working staff, the software you decide to utilise has never become more important.

You’ll soon discover that you will need to make significant adjustments when working remotely, especially if you are used to working in an office for a long time.

Zoom Video Conferencing

With Zoom, you can discuss tasks that need more explanation or catch up with the rest of your colleagues for a face to face chat. Another great feature is that you can share your screen, which means that you can show a colleague sitting on the other end how to do something.
You can set up invitation-only meetings, so only those will be able to access the video conference, who had been invited. This means that you won’t be interrupted by random calls, as this app is tailored for serious (or not so serious) meetings. What’s more, you can create ‘Zoom Rooms’ which are conference rooms built for team collaboration. This is what sets Zoom apart from other competitors, that they are making an effort to create a professional space for teams to share and implement ideas. Find out more about this great software and try it for free.

TeamViewer

TeamViewer is the perfect solution for our remote engineers to access a computer securely at a remote location. It can also allow our service team to access their office computers, data and software from their home.
When providing technical support to resolve an issue that cannot be solved with troubleshooting over the phone, we turn to remote access.

Trello

Managing several projects at once is no easy feat. Managing several projects when your colleagues are remote can be even trickier, especially without the right tools. Trello is an easy-to-use web-based tool for managing projects that can be used for individual task management or project management for an entire team. It lets you assign tasks to individual team members or a group of team members, and it tracks deadlines.

Dropbox

If you have bulk files, you may not be able to share these over email, as some don’t take attachments larger than a certain size, which you’d then have to upload and share via apps like Google Drive or WeTransfer. This is where Dropbox comes in. Remote workers can use this to organise large files, by simply uploading the documents, and even organise them in terms of months and send you a message once the work is submitted. Recently, Dropbox announced the launch of Paper, a separate app like Google Docs to allow people to collaborate in real time.

Gemma Wilson
Marketing & Communications

One thing that I have encountered while dressing to work from home is that when wearing office clothes, it makes it much more difficult to get up from my desk and go off to do non-work-related chores around the house. When I look down and see my PLH Medical branded polo it acts as a reminder that it’s time to work. Do you know how difficult it can be to start vacuuming or to do the dishes in your work clothes? I am not suggesting you wear your most expensive shirt or trousers to work at your computer, but just wearing a shirt or blouse can easily keep you seated and focus on the projects at hand, in my opinion at least!

I never dreamt I would see myself writing about the fundamental need to wear pants for work, but I am. It is very tempting to just roll out of bed and start working. For me, that is a recipe for failure. For some reason, I subconsciously associate pyjamas or lounge pants with relaxing and free time.

Typically in the office, we wear smart dress Monday to Thursday with a much-loved dress down Friday. Now that we don’t have that to look forward too, I wondered what I could do to mix up my days. Now, I am going to sound like a hypocrite but I thought I would brighten up my conference calls with themed clothing. Today, it’s my Star Wars top and bottoms. Due to the government lockdown, we no longer have the weekend to look forward too. Our environment isn’t going to change much at the end of the working week, so if my outfit can crack a few smiles on today’s conference call, it’s a bonus!

Nevertheless and Friday aside, I still feel it’s important to keep in the right mindset and wear a smart but casual outfit I would wear when working in an office. My main reason for doing so is that the clothing, aside from flipping a psychological switch to tell me that it is “time for work”, also makes it harder to do non-work-related tasks. Let us not forget all this helps build the much-needed routine that remote workers should adopt. Build your daily routine and beat those distractions.

Gemma Wilson
Marketing & Communications