How many times have you sat in a stuffy office trying to work on a computer wishing for a breeze of fresh air? If you work in the average NHS hospital the answer is every day of the week! Unfortunately the budget for office fans is slim nowadays, leaving us with a group effort to purchase a fan for the ward office.

Following a whip around one particularly hot and sticky morning we hit purchase on the Bionaire Box Fan from Amazon.co.uk for the paltry sum of £53.74 including delivery. I felt this was a bit expensive for a fan, but seeing as it was split between 8 staff it worked out to a reasonable contribution each. That being said, if I had to purchase a fan for my own home I'd be going with a cheaper model.

The fan comes out of the box fully assembled and sits proudly on the floor, stretching about 12 inches across at its widest point and about 6 inches deep. Made of white glossy plastic it looks pretty good combined with the wave-effect grille. I'm not sure what type of plastic it is but it doesn't feel too brittle and I'm sure it'll last us a while yet. Perhaps the cost is related to the size as this isn't a small item, it's a large piece of office furniture. It currently sits curled up like the local cat under the main desk and is fairly unobstrusive. I'd imagine it'd stick out a bit if you didn't have a convenient desk to hide it under however.

Using the fan is pretty simple, plug it in and press on and you're away. It has 3 separate speeds, slow, medium and fast. If you're on your own in the office slow is fine but as soon as more than one person is around then you need to bump it up. We've only ever gone as high as medium as high is just too noisy for us to work in for long periods. It's not going to damage your ears or anything, it's just a pain in the neck to listen to the constant whirring! Airflow is perfectly acceptable at medium as well so you aren't missing out by choosing it.

The model we received also comes with what is called "Aroma Feature" which claims to fit most popular brands of scented oils (glade anyone?). I like the idea of this feature as I feel it would probably spread an aroma further than a standard plug in. Unfortunately scented oils aren't allowed on the ward so we've yet to use this function. Is it a selling point? Maybe. Would I buy it because of the "aroma feature"? No.

Overall I'm quite pleased with our group purchase, the ward office is a nicer environment to work in now and you can do a half hours typing without needing a change of clothes! Would I buy this for my own home? I reckon so but I'd need a discount on the £53 pricetag, somewhere around £40 and I'd recommend it to everyone looking a bit hot under the collar.

4/5, just misses out on price.