Welsh Innovations in Healthcare announces winners of innovation competition

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Issue Date: 5th March 2008

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Welsh Innovations in Healthcare announces winners of innovation competition

On the 28th February 2008, Welsh Innovations in Healthcare (WIsH) held a seminar and awards ceremony at the Swansea Marriott Hotel to announce the results of its 2007 Innovation Competition. The event brought together pioneers from within the NHS Wales community to celebrate the best healthcare innovations of the year.

The annual competition recognises staff at all levels that have developed good ideas for innovative healthcare products and services. Winners of this year’s competition were:

Overall Winner: Cardiff & Vale NHS Trust, for the development of a device to reduce the manual effort required in the manipulation of larger syringes when processing in the pharmacy.

Technology Runner Up: Velindre NHS Trust, for the development of an improved design of board to support patients during radiotherapy treatment.

Hybrid Innovation Runner Up: Conwy & Denbighshire NHS Trust for the development of a system to improve the prescription of medication to patients suffering from paracetamol overdose.

The Boots Centre for Innovation was invited to be one of the six judges in this year’s competition together with Welsh Assembly Government, UDL Intellectual Property, Trosolwg Systems & Software and MediWales. The Centre agreed to sponsor the runner up award for the Technology Innovation category and also offer business consultancy as part of the prize.

“This is an exciting project to be involved in and we are delighted to be sponsoring the technology award,” says Ged O’Shea, Managing Director, Boots Centre for Innovation. “The Centre offers expertise and a network to bring ideas to life. This continuing innovation support is crucial to the uptake of new technologies by industry and for the successful implementation of innovations across the NHS.”

The judges also awarded a special prize, recognizing the Spirit of Innovation to a team from Velindre NHS Trust who have developed a package for women with learning disabilities to help them understand the nature of screening programmes that are on offer to them.

The awards were presented by Andrew Davies, Minister for Finance and Public Service Delivery, Welsh Assembly Government.

“It is encouraging to see so many entries and novel ideas to improve patient healthcare,” says Dr Nicholas Shilton, Innovations Manager, WIsH. “NHS staff are routinely involved in the development of innovative ideas either when treating patients or through clinical research. It is important to celebrate this innovation and ensure that new ideas generated using public funds are effectively captured, assessed and where possible fully used to improve healthcare.”

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