Medequip is the UK’s leading provider of community equipment services for the NHS and local authorities.
It’s our job to ensure vulnerable people receive essential healthcare equipment — delivered and maintained efficiently.
Our fleet of about 1,000 vehicles is always on the move and our vans collectively cover almost 20 million miles per year, so accident liability is always front-of-mind for me as a fleet manager.
We’ve consistently found our commercial vehicle drivers to be vulnerable in "my word against theirs" accident scenarios. Without objective evidence, you can be at a disadvantage in disputes. The lack of proof leads to ambiguity and unfair blame, which can have a knock-on effect for us, particularly for our insurance costs.
Most of the incidents that occur are not major — they’re smaller bumps and scrapes with third parties or property – but we have had several serious road traffic accidents in the last few years where dashcam footage has been invaluable.
Our top priority is fulfilling our duty of care responsibilities for our team. And it’s not just about safety. We also recognise the impact prolonged claims processes can have on our drivers’ morale and confidence.
“Spending a little bit of money on the system could save our company millions in payouts and legal fees by helping prevent a serious incident.”Richard Horton, Head of Fleet, Medequip
We have experience with a lot of different dashcam systems and we’ve found the Ford Pro Telematics with Dashcam to be very user-friendly.
The aftersales support and Telematics platform that we have with Ford really makes a difference for our operational teams.
Some drivers were a little reluctant at first, but they got on board after we explained that the system isn’t there to spy on them — it’s to help prevent them being unfairly held liable for incidents.
Beyond claims, Ford Pro Telematics with Dashcam really supports our safety strategy.
The AI is great at coaching our drivers. It documents behaviour that we have a duty to educate our drivers about to keep them safe — like not wearing seatbelts. And it beeps to let them know when the in-cab camera has detected behaviour that could cause attention to slip, like having a drink at the wheel.
The Ford Pro system is helping give our company a clearer picture of what’s really going on out there, and we can enrich incident details with the video and telematics to understand the causes and behaviours behind incidents, rather than just a generic report.
It allows us to manage incidents on a case-by-case basis without driving reporting underground.
From a financial perspective, investing in this system is proactive. Spending a little bit of money on the system could save our company millions in payouts and legal fees by helping prevent a serious incident.
Having a fully integrated system is also a big advantage and hardwired systems are the solution to that, which is why we’re making the long-term transition.
We’ve been trialling Ford Pro Telematics with Dashcam on a small number of the 250 Ford vans on our fleet, but we will be retrofitting to 250 more vehicles in the coming months with a view to getting 100 per cent of our fleet kitted out with telematics and AI CCTV.
Richard Horton is the Head of Fleet for Medequip
