The EU Health Council’s conclusions on the use of e-health systems to deliver healthcare have called for work to solve technical problems, protect health data and facilitate market development.

These conclusions followed the EU member states’ declaration that e-health has the potential to bring about a safer and more efficient health sector.

E-health comprises telecare (the use of wireless technologies to promote the safety of vulnerable people) and telehealth (the use of wireless technology for the remote monitoring of medical conditions).

The Council recognised “the need for further political leadership and to integrate e-health into health policy in order to develop e-health services on the basis of public health needs.”

It called on the EU member states to develop initiatives for the deployment and use of e-health services – and in particular, to:

• commit strategically to e-health as one of the main ways to enhance quality, access and safety in healthcare

• build confidence in and acceptance of e-health services

• bring legal clarity and ensure protection of health data

• solve technical issues and facilitate market development.

The Council asked the European Commission to organise an evaluation of the health benefits and cost-effectiveness of different e-health services, building on knowledge accumulated at EU and national levels.

Furthermore, the Council called on the member states and the Commission to:

• collaborate on a governance model to co-ordinate member state actions to promote e-health

• address common issues and challenges in bringing forward e-health services

• develop a road map with decision support and guidelines for deployment, acceptance and use of e-health services

• work with patients and health professionals to ensure that e-health tools and services reflect clinical needs and health system objectives.

The new Tradeshow Access Programme (TAP) from UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) shows a strong commitment to supporting SMEs in the medical technologies sector.

UKTI will make grants available to fund visits by small companies to major trade shows in the coming year, including medtech-related events such as Hospitalar, Rehacare and Medica.

Figures released by the Office of National Statistics show that UK exports have risen by 6.1% over the last three months.

Lord Davies, Minister for Trade, Investment and Small Business, said: “In the year since I became a Minister, I have met hundreds of innovative businesses, many of them SMEs, whose fortunes were transformed by going global. It is good business sense not to tie your firm’s future to one market alone.

“UK firms should make a New Year’s resolution to find out about the real help on offer via UK Trade & Investment. Make 2010 the year when you take it to the world.”

UKTI helps firms to reach overseas markets by offering grants under its Tradeshow Access Programme (TAP) of up to £1,800 for businesses to take part in trade shows overseas.

Ron Archibald, Director of the Tradeshow Access Programme, said: “We are on course for the best year for the TAP programme, supporting more businesses than ever before. Given the value of the pound, it’s a good time to export and we are helping firms to get directly to their customers.”

The new TAP list includes grants for 12 trade shows relevant to medical technology companies:

China Medical Equipment Fair (CMEF) 18/04/2010

Hospitalar 25/05/2010

Fime 11/08/2010

Aid & Trade 26/08/2010

Hospimedica Asia 15/09/2010

Analytica China 15/09/2010

Nanotech Northern Europe 27/09/2010

Rehacare 06/10/2010

Advamed 18/10/2010

Medica 17/11/2010

ComPaMED 17/11/2010

Arab Health 2011 01/01/2011

Lord Davies

New bodies that combine experience in industry, health and education have been formed to provide health education and training, with an emphasis on building a culture of innovation.

The new Health Innovation and Education Clusters (HIECs) are cross-sector partnerships between NHS organisations, the higher education sector and private sector companies such as BMW, GlaxoSmithKline and BT.

Through joint working, HIECs will provide professional education and training. They aim to promote innovation in healthcare by speeding up the adoption of research.

The 17 initial HIECs have been chosen by an Independent Award Panel from many applicants. The Government is investing over £11m to set up the projects in the next year, and just under £10 million in year 2.

Health Minister Ann Keen said: “HIECs are special partnerships that draw on the wealth of skills and experience of their members to improve the development of high-quality care and services by quickly bringing the benefits of research and innovation directly to patients.

“These projects will attract and encourage the best talent, who can recognise and rapidly adopt new and innovative healthcare and treatment.”

Sir Alan Langlands, Chairman of the Independent Award Panel, said: “The standard of applications has been really high and we have been impressed by the high-profile names that want to be involved in improving NHS care. HIECs will drive up quality standards in education and training and ensure fast adoption of innovation for the benefit of local people.”

The HIEC concept was developed from the recommendation in the NHS Next Stage Review that commissioning and provision of health education and training be separated. The overall responsibility for commissioning education remains with the SHAs.

Ann Keen

Surrey medtech company JAOtech has been declared Start-Up of the Year at the Electronics Weekly Elektra Awards in London – concluding a hat-trick of awards this month for the company.

The judges praised JAOtech’s achievement in developing the market for its ‘smart terminals’ and increasing its sales tenfold in 2008–9. They noted that the company had “acquired a company in the US to strengthen its presence in this important market, and opened local customer support centres in Australia, France and the Netherlands.”

Warren Kressinger-Dunn, CEO of JAOtech, said: “The Elektras are one of the most prestigious awards of the electronics industry, and we are very proud to have been named Start-Up of the Year. This award is a tribute to the whole of the JAOtech team, who together have developed a world-class product and successfully taken it to market.”

Through the Elektra Awards, the electronics industry recognises the achievements of individuals and companies across Europe. The awards promote best practice in innovation, sales growth and employee motivation. They are presented by Electronics Weekly, a leading industry publication.

Redhill-based JAOtech is a market leader in the design and manufacture of embedded smart terminals, over 35,000 of which have been installed in hospitals worldwide. The terminals provide secure access to electronic medical records and triple-play solutions for patient entertainment.

JAOtech at the Elektra Awards

DePuy Orthopaedics, Inc. has acquired Finsbury Orthopaedics Ltd, a UK-based manufacturer and distributor of orthopaedic implants.

Finsbury Orthopaedics, based in Leatherhead, Surrey, employs about 250 people. It specialises in durable hip, knee and ankle replacements that reduce the need for further operations. The company made pre-tax profits of £2.2m in the year to September 2008.

The sale price has been estimated by analysts to be over £60m. British engineer Mike Tuke, who helped to set up Finsbury in 1978, will be the major beneficiary. He is expected to stay on at the company.

Finsbury has achieved global success with its hip replacements, which feature proprietary ceramic-on-ceramic and metal-on-metal bearings. DePuy described Finsbury as “pioneering”, and said it was keen to offer a number of the British company’s products to its patients.

The acquisition gives DePuy several key products, including the DeltaMotion Ceramic-on-Ceramic Hip System, the ADEPT Metal-on-Metal Hip Resurfacing and Total Hip System and the BOX Total Ankle Replacement.

US company DePuy Orthopaedics, a subsidiary of the Johnson & Johnson group, is a global leader in the hip replacement market.

Mike Tuke

A pilot project of new NHS services to bring healthcare closer to patients’ homes has been launched in Birmingham.

NHS Birmingham East and North (BEN) is working in partnership with Healthcare at Home Ltd, a leading UK provider of clinical homecare, to develop personalised care for patients in their own homes.

The new services will run as pilot projects for twelve months across east and north Birmingham. They are expected to reduce hospital stays and prevent unnecessary admissions.

The project involves important elements of service redesign, including a new Enhanced Supported Discharge service to support fracture patients and an Acute Community Based Care Service for patients with long-term conditions, initially focusing on COPD.

The support being made available includes a rapid response team, new care pathways and a dedicated care bureau, which will provide a 24-hour telephone nurse triage facility.

Andrew Donald, Chief Operating Officer at BEN, said: “We are delighted to be welcoming the first patients onto these unique programmes, which will bring healthcare closer to patients’ homes, providing 24/7 care, helping them to get out of hospital quicker and reducing their need to go there in the first place.

“The project will increase access to more community-based services and improve the quality of life of patients, offering them more personalised and innovative care while improving their health outcomes. BEN and Healthcare at Home Ltd will be working closely together in this.”

The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London is launching a new low-cost telehealth service in partnership with iPLATO Healthcare to support people with epilepsy.

Mobile and Internet Support for People with Epilepsy aims to help the hospital’s outpatients improve the management of their condition using their personal Internet and mobile technology.

The service has two components: mobile-based medication support and a web-based patient diary.

Medication Support will use text messaging to send reminders to patients, who will be able to choose their own level of personalised support – including the option of alerts for carers. The service will also support medication changes by reminding patients to adjust their dosages.

Patient Diary will assist the recording of essential information for epilepsy monitoring. Using a password-protected web interface, patients will have the opportunity to record seizures, injuries and medication profiles. They will be able to update some of the information by mobile phone, and to construct reports over a specific period.

Anthony Linklater, Epilepsy Specialist Nurse, said: “After a long period of preparation we are excited to be launching this service, which we believe will be of great benefit to our patients. If the service is positively evaluated, we are hopeful that it will grow in scope and sophistication over the next few years.”

“We believe there is a huge need for low-cost telehealth services in the UK and elsewhere,” said Tobias Alpsten, CEO of iPLATO Healthcare. “By delivering a service to devices that patients already own we dramatically reduce costs and reduce barriers to usage, while delivering solid health outcomes.”

UK medical device company Owen Mumford has signed a new three-year agreement to supply insulin pens to sanofi-aventis for global distribution.

The Autopen 24 reusable insulin pen will be used with sanofi-aventis’ insulin cartridges. The combination will be supplied to over 60 countries.

The contract renews the existing business partnership between the two companies.

Adam Mumford, Sales & Marketing Director at Owen Mumford, said: “This new agreement with sanofi-aventis is a strong endorsement of the ease of use and effectiveness of Autopen 24 in assisting patients in the management of their diabetes, acknowledged by healthcare professionals and patients alike.”

Oxford-based Owen Mumford is a leading UK manufacturer of medical devices for the treatment of diabetes.

A new NHS strategy published by the Department of Health places emphasis on improving quality and productivity through ongoing service reforms.

According to NHS 2010-2015: from good to great. Preventative, people-centred, productive, the key priorities for managing the impending NHS budget cutbacks are protecting patients, supporting clinical staff, shifting resources to the frontline and cutting back bureaucracy.

The measures outlined include:

• A new payment system that links hospital income to patient satisfaction, rising to 10% of payments over time.

• Dedicated one-to-one carers for patients with cancer or serious long-term conditions.

• Plans to offer frontline staff an employment guarantee in return for flexibility, mobility and pay restraint.

• More freedom for successful hospitals to expand their services into the community, including GP centres.

• Personal care plans and health budgets, enabling patients to choose how and where they will be treated.

• A legal right to an 18-week waiting time for treatment after GP referral (two weeks for cancer patients).

• A legal right for everyone aged 40–74 to an NHS Health Check every five years to assess their risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes and kidney disease.

Health Secretary Andy Burnham said: “For the NHS to become truly great, it must become more preventative and people-centred. This means top quality care is our goal and patient safety our top priority. Quality care is not always about spending more money, but about spending it in the right places. Moving care from hospitals into homes and communities is better for patients and more efficient.”

Burnham also stated that “where there is underperformance and the NHS is an incumbent provider, we will give the NHS the first opportunity to improve to the level of the best” – but that this did not mean “freezing out the independent sector”. Partnership working is a core theme.

Peter Ellingworth, Chief Executive of the Association of British Healthcare Industries (ABHI), said: “ABHI strongly endorses the Secretary of State’s statement that ‘meeting the productivity challenge is crucial to continued success’. Industry is used to this productivity challenge and recognises the need to work in different ways with the NHS in this new financial climate.”

Noting that the new strategy requires the NHS to work with industry as a partner, developing a business-to-business relationship, Ellingworth said: “We look forward to demonstrating how technology can help keep costs down as we develop a deeper relationship with the NHS along the lines set out by the Secretary of State.”

Eucomed, the European medtech industry association, welcomed the strategy’s emphasis on the role of innovation: finding new ways to prevent, diagnose and treat disease will be crucial, the report notes, in the challenging financial climate ahead.

John Wilkinson, Chief Executive of Eucomed, said: “Medical technology manufacturers have the power to provide patients, hospitals and community care settings with innovative and cost-effective solutions which address current and future health and economic challenges.”

He noted the emphasis placed by the report on shifting health services into the community: “This increasing demand for new or adapted goods and services is a great opportunity for innovative companies to design high-quality products which help reduce the burden of healthcare systems.”

Peter Ellingworth                           John Wilkinson

Innovative medtech companies supplying human tissue and cardiac implants have been recognised for their outstanding contributions to the life sciences sector in the West of Scotland.

The Nexxus Life Science Awards 2009 were presented at Oran Mor in Glasgow, in front of 130 delegates from industry, academia and the NHS.

Clydebank-based Tissue Solutions, which supplies ethically-acquired human tissue to life science companies worldwide, won the Most Promising Young Life Science Company Award.

Since its launch by cofounders Ann Cooreman and Morag McFarlane in late 2007, Tissue Solutions has gained clients in Europe, the US, Canada and Japan. It supplies precise types of tissues with detailed donor information.

In 2008, Tissue Solutions received 42 orders; this year, it has received over 140 orders. The company sees a high percentage of repeat customers.

Chief Scientific Officer Dr Morag McFarlane said: “We have built up a large portfolio of blue chip clients from scratch with no external investment. We want to make Tissue Solutions, and Scotland, a major focal point for high-quality, ethical tissue provision on the worldwide stage.”

Renfrewshire-based Vascutek won the Nexxus 2009 Life Science Award for Innovation for its BioValsalva implant, which simultaneously replaces a diseased heart valve and its main artery.

Vascutek commented: “With an ageing population requiring increased cardiac intervention, our product has come to fruition at a good time. It’s a wonderful feeling to be a part of creating a product that can make a real difference to so many lives.

“BioValsalva proves that a product does not have to be new to be innovative. Vascutek combined two existing technologies to provide a solution to an old surgical problem, and created a new opportunity.”

BioValsalva is the first pre-assembled implant combining a biological heart valve and a self-sealing vascular graft. It enables surgeons to reduce operating time and blood loss during replacement procedures, and takes away the need for anticoagulation treatment.

The device has been approved for use in 42 countries, and more than 2,000 have been implanted.

Morag McFarlane and Ann Cooreman                     Paul Burns