Councillors shocked as audit reveals £1.5m of write-offs from medical equipment stores

The Fife Equipment Loan Store (FELS) has until November 30 to fix one critical issue, five substantial issues, and five moderate problems identified ina paper put before councillors at Fife Council's standards, audit and risk committee this week.

An internal audit recently found that equipment servicing is often overdue or not done at all, and the service is reporting £1.5 million worth of equipment write-offs.

The service provides a loan service for specialised medical equipment to support for Fife Health and Social Care Partnership service users. Its store stocks over 600 different items varying from simple dressing and toileting aids to more specialised beds, hoists and pressure relieving equipment. However following an internal audit, the service has been ordered to make multiple improvements.

Auditors claimed that contracted drivers who deliver and uplift equipment are not provided with any form of identification to help them verify who they are before entering a person’s home. There is also no “appropriate process” in place to make sure all items of equipment are serviced on time, or at all.

“As a result, servicing of equipment is not always carried out and when it is, it is often significantly past the due date,” a committee report stated. “More specifically, from a sample of 30 items of equipment,as of November 2023, seven had been serviced on time, eight had been carried out late - by 15-60 weeks - and 15 remained outstanding.”

There’s a financial element underpinning the service issues as well. According to auditors, there are no documented procedures for covering stock write-offs, and the stock adjustment - or write-off - report. showing a total of 30,164 items with a value of £1,591,923 has “never been reviewed.”

Councillor Ann Verner (SNP for St Andrews) called the sum “horrific” and “eye-watering.”

Councillor John Beare (SNP for Glenrothes North, Leslie and Markinch) added: “I’ll be honest, I genuinely can’t recall the last time I saw a critical recommendation. They are very rare and few and far in between.”

Allan Halliday, operation and logistic commercial manager for FELS was at the scrutiny meeting to explain the findings. He stated that the £1.5 million write off value was a result of flaws in the system and not a reflection of reality.

“The valuation does seem extremely high but in reality it’s not a valuation,” he said. He explained that what has been written off “is the labels and not the equipment.”

He explained that every piece of equipment is asset tracked in a digital system. When the service buys a new piece of equipment - such as a walking stick - an asset tag is created and printed. That equipment then goes out into the community and is used before making its way back to the loan store.

“The item could come back but the label may be missing. Somebody might have picked it off, so we’ll reprint a label, but the original value is still sitting there in the system,” Mr Halliday said.

By the end of November, he said that they’re looking to “tighten up” that process and get the system in better order. Issues around overdue equipment servicing will be corrected sooner. FELS has promised that by the end of March, all overdue servicing will be completed.

A follow up report will be brought to committee at some point to check in on progress.