NHS Innovations South West

Medical Devices Technology Int’l (MDTi), in association with the RCN and NHS Innovation Hubs, is to “Showcase” medical devices based entirely on nurse and patient led innovation on 11 May 2009 at the Harrogate Conference Centre. These medical devices are “simple” to use and understand but bring about real improvement to the frontline care of patients whilst helping to reduce infection rates and costs within the NHS.
Whilst most thinking is negative in the current recessionary climate, this has not prevented forward thinking RCN Nurses and patients seeing an opportunity to bring about real changes to improving patient care. They are doing this through innovative thinking leading to the development of new medical devices that help reduce infection rates and enable more care to be undertaken within patients’ homes, saving the NHS millions each year.
This year RCN Congress clips onto NHS Innovators by showcasing the value and importance of Nurses, Allied Healthcare Professionals and Patients in identifying opportunities for new products that can bring real frontline benefits. As an example, the latest NHS “Innovator” and RCN member Senior Staff Nurse Sam McDonald of St Austell Community Hospital, Cornwall and Isles of Scilly PCT with the ‘IV-Sty’ clip based on his original idea.
The ‘IV-Sty’ clip has been designed so that when giving Intravenous fluids it prevents the ‘piggy back’ IV secondary line from separating from the primary line so improving infection control and reducing the risk of needle-stick injuries to staff and patients.
Accidental needle-stick injuries are the main injuries in the UK relating to the use of “sharps”; there is estimated to be about 150,000 such injuries each year. Nurses have the highest rate of sharps injuries amongst health care workers. The risk of infection depends on the pathogen immune status of the worker and the severity of the injury. It is estimated that an injury caused by a “sharps” will result in disease in 3 to 5 instances in 1000 in HIV cases, 3 in 1000 for Hepatitis B and 20 to 50 instances in 1000 for Hepatitis C.
A “sharp’s” injury causes stress and anxiety to workers. It can result in time off work and there is the issue of compensation currently estimated at a cost to the NHS of £3.5million per year.
With the help of NHS Innovation Hub South West, Sam McDonald’s idea was protected, prototyped and tested and licensed to Wolverhampton based medical device manufacturer, Medical Devices Technology International (MDTI).