Group wins deal to give medics a hand
Aug 6 2008 by Chris Knox, The Journal
A COMPANY that has developed software allowing trainee medics to use virtual reality technology to practise injections has secured a multi-million-pound NHS contract.
Morpeth group UK Haptics is among four companies that will begin working for the NHS later this year through its Technology Adoption Centre, and believes it will more than double its projected £1m first-year turnover as a result.
The contract win will see its Virtual Veins technology being adopted in a number of medical practices nationally as well as a host of universities and NHS training schools.
The technology, the company’s first product, allows medical trainees to practise venepuncture – taking blood from veins – on a virtual 3D hand.
Students put on goggles and in the window in front of their eyes they are shown a 100% life-like hand with 3D veins. When they insert the needle in the hand, it gives a response as if real and reacts to increased or reduced pressure, showing if the vein has been missed.
Once the vein has been punctured, blood fills the syringe as it would in real life.
It was chosen by the NHS from 54 projects in the UK, along with a bladder analysis tool for men and an ultrasound machine which determines the amount of blood being pumped around the body
The firm believes it can increase its workforce from four to 24 staff by next year as a result of its growing reputation.
Managing director Gary Todd said: “It is really important that we establish ourselves with the NHS as it gives the technology a massive seal of approval and means we can then market it to a wider international market.
“We have been chosen from a list of 54, along with three other cutting-edge products, which makes us very proud, and I’m sure we can now begin to grow rapidly as a business.”
The firm has already seen the £28,000 teaching aid installed in three ambulances in the North East as well as at Sheffield Hallam University, which was helped by its chancellor and famous medical academic Lord Robert Winston, who was impressed by the technology.
The firm is also in talks with Japanese company Nihon Binary to distribute the technology in the Far East.
Mr Todd said: “We are dealing with a very expensive piece of kit and one that still has the potential to become very popular within the worldwide medical profession because of its uniqueness.”
