A recent survey showed that 94% of practising surgeons in the UK have either been personally affected by a needlestick injury (NSI) or have seen a colleague experience one.
The Royal College of Nursing also reported last year that the pressures of the pandemic and lack of training accounted for a 50% rise in sharps injuries.
UK-based smart med-tech innovator NeedleSmart aims to change this statistic. NeedleSmart has designed the world’s first end-to-end vaccination and safe needle destruction system aimed at reducing the 100,000 needlestick injuries (NSI) to NHS workers in the UK each year and three million globally.
Of the 100,000 reported cases of NSI, NHS healthcare workers in the UK are the most affected profession, with 500,000 NSI in Germany and more than one million NSI in the USA. They are estimated to cost each NHS trust £500,000 each year and an estimated £127 million across England. This is not to mention the impact it has on staff absenteeism, the cost of bringing in replacement staff and legal litigation to NHS trusts, which are already under increased pressure with the pandemic.
To achieve this, the Knowsley-based MedTech disruptor havs entered into an exciting new innovation partnership with the Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust, one of Europe’s leading paediatric healthcare institutions with a unique dedicated innovation centre focused on solving real world problems faced day to day. The first phase of that innovation partnership will work on a safety and NSI reduction programme as part of its clinician and patient safety enhancement. The project aims to impact, reduce and eventually prevent the 100,000 NSIs that occur every year to NHS healthcare staff.
In its wider remit, NeedleSmart is also working with 15 NHS trusts across the UK as part of the nationwide pilot, where its focus is shared between safety enhancement, carbon reduction and sustainability. This programme is breaking new ground on the art of the possible with regards to medical waste disposal resulting is direct carbon savings as part of the NHS sustainability initiative.