NHS Innovations awards: winners announced

A novel diagnostic test for bowel cancer, a remote wound management service and a therapeutic package to supporting mental health in children are among the winners of the Medipex 2011 NHS Innovation Awards, announced last night (Thursday 22 September).

Now in their seventh year, the Awards recognise NHS staff members across the Yorkshire and Humber and East Midlands regions who have developed innovative ideas to improve patient care.

Two hundred people from across the NHS and medical technology industry attended the Awards, hosted at Cedar Court Hotel in Wakefield. The annual competition forms a key part of Medipex’s work to promote innovation within the NHS, helping innovators to develop their ideas and linking medical technology companies with clinical staff to facilitate product development and clinical trials.

Medipex received over 120 entries and twenty-five clinical teams were shortlisted across 5 categories. The winners are listed below.

Medical devices (sponsored by UDL Patent Agents and Medilink Yorkshire and Humber)

Professor Muhammed Imran Aslam and his team from the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust for his work developing a novel blood test for bowel cancer detection and screening. The assay is based on detecting micro-RNAs and offers better accuracy of detection and the potential for significant cost savings compared with current diagnostics. The initial work has been validated with a high degree of accuracy on 100 patients and the team are now looking to produce a diagnostic kit with software that should be able to produce results within 6-8 hours.

Software and Telehealth category (sponsored by Yorkshire and Humber HIEC)

A team led by Kathryn Vowden of Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Brenda King of Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust for their work developing a telewound management service in collaboration with Longhand Data Ltd and ADL Smartcare. The service allows them to remotely assess the status of wounds being managed in the community, either by district nurses or care home staff, and to provide an intervention only when really necessary, allowing efficiencies in time management and early intervention in cases where wound deterioration is detected early thorough the monitoring system. Although the service is still in its evaluation phase, a number of hospital admissions have already been avoided and more appropriate dressings used to accelerate the rate of wound healing.

Mental Health and Wellbeing (sponsored by South Yorkshire Comprehensive Local Research Network)

Ian Colpitts and colleagues from Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust have developed a therapeutic package for young children called SMILES. This package is aimed at preventing mental health issues occurring in young children, teaching them a variety of techniques and skills in order to equip them for future life stresses, but can be used to support those who do require further therapeutic input.

GP and Primary Care (Sponsored by MDTi)

Alan Rouane from Prior Campus in Barnsley; Alan and other members of the health team have been involved in implementing a weight management project called Fit Reds. Based at Barnsley football ground, the participants – all of whom are male Barnsley residents, aged over 35 and who consider themselves to be overweight – receive a mix of health advice and physical activity over an 8 week programme. To date, the 50 men who have completed the course have lost a combined total of 36 stone 4 pounds in weight and 93% of them have lowered their blood pressure as a direct result of their participation.

Acute and Secondary Care (Sponsored by NHS Yorkshire and the Humber)

Michelle Cooke and her team from Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust have developed a novel approach for intravenous iron administration in the community to people with chronic kidney disease. Intravenous iron infusion is necessary to maintain the correct levels of haemoglobin in the blood. If left uncorrected, then the resulting anaemia can have a significant effect on a patient’s quality of life and ability to function and work normally. This scheme means that rather than attending hospitals for 3-5 hours for iron infusion, patients now only need to attend their local health centre for one hour.

Richard Clark, CEO of Medipex said of the awards “It’s always a pleasure for Medipex to run our innovation competition; there are so many innovative people working within the NHS and these awards help to recognise their achievements as well as highlighting innovations which can be commissioned or adopted by other organisations. The entries in this year’s competition were some of the best we have seen in the last 7 years and all the finalists should be congratulated for the work they have done improving patient care”.

Full details of all the finalists can be found on Medipex’s website, www.medipex.co.uk 

Ends

Further information from:

Stephanie Bridgford, Customer Service Manager, Medipex Ltd: Tel No.: 0113 3970 839, Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it     

Notes for editors

ABOUT MEDIPEX

Medipex is the NHS Innovation Hub for the Yorkshire and Humber region. It was set up in 2004 to identify truly innovative ideas conceived by NHS Staff and where possible to protect any intellectual property associated with those ideas and facilitate their dissemination. Since 2004, Medipex has received over 1,000 idea submissions from NHS staff. As well as working with NHS staff, Medipex also works with a wide range of medical technology companies to help them link with NHS staff to facilitate development of medical technology products.