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Award winning SBRI Centre of Excellence goes from strength to strength
Bwrdd Iechyd Prifysgol Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board Bwrdd Iechyd Prifysgol Hywel Dda University Health Board
Bwrdd Iechyd Addysgu Powys Powys Teaching Health Board
Award winning SBRI Centre of Excellence goes from strength to strength Iechyd Cyhoeddus Cymru Public Health Wales
Despite their first year as a team being under the cloud of a global pandemic, they have managed to come together and deliver projects to develop solutions that have helped in the fight against COVID-19 and have been recognised for their success.
The SBRI Centre of Excellence is hosted by Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board and funded by Welsh Government. Its focus is to work with public sector bodies to ‘challenge’ industry and academia to develop innovative solutions to challenges that we face, improving the health and well-being of those living in Wales. The past 18 months has been very busy and a short update of each innovative project taken forward during this period is detailed below:
Rapid Sanitisation of Ambulances:
This rapid project was an integrated collaboration throughout with WAST, SBRI Centre and the Welsh Government and other UK departments including the Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) and the Defence and Security Technology Laboratories (DSTL). The solutions developed were able to reduce the time taken to clean an ambulance by 86% giving staff the time to undertake other duties whilst the cleaning process is underway. The cost of cleaning an ambulance was also reduced by 82%. The SBRI Centre of Excellence and Welsh Ambulance Service were presented with a St David Award by the First Minister of Wales for their work on this project.
Face Mask Challenge:
Ymddiriedolaeth GIG Prifysgol Felindre Velindre University NHS Trust
Ymddiriedolaeth GIG Gwasanaethau Ambiwlans Cymru This challenge focussed on the issues Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust faced with finding suitable fitted FFP3 level masks with various shaped and sized faces of Health Board staff became apparent during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic alongside the need for transparency to aid communication with vulnerable patients. This project brought about a collaboration between the SBRI Centre, Welsh Government, NHS Wales, experts from the Surgical Materials Testing Laboratory, NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership. Six suppliers were successful in gaining contracts for this rapid project and are expecting approvals from notified bodies imminently.
Better Lives Closer to Home:
Following the success of the Better Lives, Closer to Home Challenge Phase 1, where we asked businesses and academia for their ideas to help communities, businesses and public sector manage the impact of COVID. Three contracts have now been awarded for very different and exciting solutions to progress and develop to become commercially available products. ideas in three key areas in the response to the significant backlog caused by COVID. The competition closed in May with some exciting applications, four contracts have been awarded and work is well underway developing some exciting innovations.
Outpatient Transformation:
In April this year the SBRI Centre launched its Outpatient Transformation Challenge in collaboration with Welsh Government and colleagues from across NHS Wales. We asked applicants for their
Simulation Training in Healthcare:
The Simulation Technology Training project is an exciting collaboration bringing together the SBRI Centre of Excellence, Welsh Government, CardiffCapitol Region, Cardiff and Vale University Health Board and experts from the wider NHS Wales with the aim to improve the way clinical training is provided. Contracts were awarded to four suppliers for the initial Phase 1, two of which have since gone on to Phase 2 and work is going full speed with support from our clinical leads.
