£2.4 boost for health technology specialists

The grants worth £800,000 each have been won by specialists based at hospitals in Bradford, Sheffield and Leeds following the creation of eight new healthcare technology co-operatives nationwide.

Among the award-winners are husband-and-wife team Peter and Kath Vowden who will head a new national centre for innovation in wound management prevention and treatment for England.

The couple set up the wound care unit at Bradford Royal Infirmary 20 years ago and have seen the service grow to support more than 1,700 patients in the district each week.

Prof Vowden, who will be the centre’s clinical director alongside his wife who is a nurse consultant and their team, said: “Our work will be very much patient-led with patients telling us what they want – for example recent patient-focus groups are asking us to invent dressings that reduce the pungent odour from their wound bandages and invent better designed footwear to accommodate their compression bandages.”

In Sheffield, Devices for Dignity, which works to improve the quality of life for patients with long-term conditions, has been handed funding for its work ranging from communication aids to new treatments for incontinence.

New rehabilitation devices for patients recovering from stroke and an on-dialysis exercise programme which could help maintain muscle function and prevent patients becoming dependent on wheelchairs are among the projects carried out by the
programme which is part of
a national co-operative of seven health trusts and three 
universities including Sheffield University.

In a further award, experts in Leeds have been given funding for work developing keyhole therapies for people with colorectal disease.