Changes afoot at the CEN Advisory Board for Health Standards
This article was originally published in RAJ Devices
The administrative management of the Advisory Board for Health Standards at the European Committee for Standardization, CEN, is due to be transferred from the CEN/CENELEC Management Centre in Brussels to one of the national standards bodies.
The proposed candidate is the Dutch standards body, NEN, Anna von Groote, programme manager for standards developments at the CEN/CENELEC Management Centre, told RAJ Devices’ sister publication Clinica.
The move is due to be ratified by the CEN Technical Board (BT) by the end of June.
At the same time, the BT is expected to appoint Andy Vaughan, head of standards policy at the UK’s Association of British Healthcare Industries and environmental systems specialist at Donawa Consulating, as CEN Sector Rapporteur Healthcare, taking over where Trudy Phelps, then head of standards policy at ABHI, had left off well over a year ago now.
The rapporteur is the spokesperson for the sector and formalises the link between the sector partners and CEN, particularly at Technical Board level.
Mr Vaughan is British, as was Mrs Phelps, but has been nominated by the European medtech industry association, Eucomed, Associate Member of CEN, as Mrs Phelps had been.
If these proposals are approved by CEN/BT, the intention is to hold the first ABHS meeting since March 2009 on 12 and 13 July.
Role of the ABHS
The CEN Advisory Board for Health Standards:
- co-ordinates the relevant CEN technical committees;
- solves problems that are common across the healthcare committees;
- analyses the latest developments affecting healthcare standardization; and
- ensures that useful information and advice is passed on to the CEN Technical Board and other committees.