UK Medical Device Companies in the Spotlight at the Medilink UK Awards 2015

By April Cashin-Garbutt, MA (Editor)May 20 2015

Innovation Award - The Learning Clinic

News-Medical.net was proud to sponsor this year’s Medilink UK Innovation Award. The Innovation Award was presented to The Learning Clinic for their VitalPAC Nurse software platform which is used to capture patient observations in real time.

Dr. Ian Birkby, CEO, AZoNetwork (News-medical.net parent company), April Cashin-Garbutt, Editor in Chief, News-Medical.net, Sean Rose and The Learning Clinic, winners of the Innovation Award.

In addition to the VitalPAC Nurse product the Learning Clinic have also developed the VitalPAC doctor platform, a product which is fast becoming the doctor’s pocket personal assistant, allowing clinicians to collect clinical information and combine it with pathology and radiology data to respond more efficiently to a specific diagnosis.

Martin Kirkup, The Learning Clinic told News-Medical that he’d like to share the award with the hospitals that use the technology:

The technology that we’re able to develop and put in the hands of clinicians, nurses, doctors and hospital managers enables them to make better decisions but at the end of the day it is an assistant, it’s decision making support that enables them to do their jobs better. It’s how they use it and how they change and adapt to use the technology that has the real impact and makes the biggest difference

Dr. Ian Birkby, CEO of AZoNetwork, the operator of News-Medical.net commented;

We’re really pleased to be sponsoring this Innovation Award. The Learning Clinic deserve all the exposure this award can provide, they have a highly Innovative Approach in relation to their product development.

I’d also like to compliment Medilink UK for their work in establishing these awards. I’ve worked with Medilink in the past and our activities are increasingly complimentary as we‘re involved in telling Medical Device success stories like these to a global audience of over 4 million monthly users through April and her News-Medical.net team, so, sponsoring these awards is a perfect win-win for us

Start Up Award – Swellaway Ltd

News-Medical.net also caught up with the winner of the Start-up Award, Richard Mills Founder & Inventor of Swellaway, who offer cooling, heating and compression all in one device. The product wraps around any part of the body and can be controlled electronically to numerous temperatures, hot and cold.

When asked how he felt about winning the award, Richard replied:

Well, absolutely brilliant. To win the Yorkshire one was a great achievement for us. So to win the national one, which we weren’t expecting… I’m absolutely over the moon.  And we’re looking to launch later in the year with the product, so it’s a great launch pad for us

Swellaway Ltd - winners of the Start Up Award.

Export Award - Nutrahealth

The Export Award was presented to Nutrahealth, the leading supplier in the U.K. of vitamins, minerals and dietary food supplements. Darren Lister, Business Development Director, Nutrahealth was on hand to describe how they have achieved a 53% increase in the amount they exported in the last year:

We currently sell to over 70 countries across 6 continents and have expanded our range to an additional 33 new markets in the last 12 months, which is fantastic

Nutrahealth - winners of the Export Award.

Partnership with the NHS – Veraz Ltd

Lancaster-based Veraz Ltd were the proud winners of the award for Partnership with the NHS. Paul Cryer spoke with the News-Medical team on their leading product, the VeraMedico System:

The technology involves knowing when something has been touched or not touched and that’s really important in terms of things like hand hygiene in hospitals. If we know how bacteria are being carried around the ward, we know that people can intervene on that by washing their hands, it reduces infection and saves lives

Veraz Ltd – winners of the Partnership with the NHS Award.

Outstanding Achievement Award – Mast Group Ltd

Finally, the Outstanding Achievement award was presented to Mast Group Ltd for the development of a system that has halved the time it takes to detect whether a patient has a urinary tract infection.

Mast Group Ltd – winners of the Outstanding Achievement Award.

Howard Rose, Managing Director, Mast Diagnostics, explained how this will help towards the huge global health problem of antibiotic resistance:

By reducing the time for a result and being able to prescribe the appropriate antibiotic, it’s an improvement for the patient, they get treated more appropriately, and hopefully it’s a very small part of helping the global antibiotic crisis