Surgical Advanced Clinical Practitioner, Liam Stout has been named the winner of the first ever ‘Innovation Voucher Competition’ launched in partnership with Medovate and Medipex.
Liam has been awarded an innovation voucher worth up to £5,000 to further develop his novel innovation for abscess management. The system seeks to reduce the need for surgery as part of the abscess management process, promoting faster recovery times and pain improvements for patients.
The pioneering concept uses a minimally invasive approach which can be carried out under local anaesthetic, reducing the need for operating theatre time and resource and surgical bed space.
Liam, who has worked at CHFT for 15 years, fought off competition from five other shortlisted clinical entrepreneurs to win. Entry to the competition was open exclusively to NHS employees from within Medipex’s member organisations across the Yorkshire & Humber and East Midlands regions.
Speaking about his achievement, Liam said: “I am extremely excited to now have additional support to develop this pioneering abscess management concept further. Traditional surgical intervention in the treatment of abscesses has been associated with increased pain, poor wound healing, poor aesthetic results and prolonged patient recovery through painful packing of the resulting wound. I therefore hope that this new concept will holistically benefit this patient group and help to negate the recognised physical and psychological pitfalls in current management practices.”
Acute abscess treatment often requires general anaesthesia, use of operating time and surgical bed space. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic there is now a critical need to develop safe, effective, non-surgical options in the management of this condition.
Robert Donald, Innovation and Licensing Officer at Medovate, said: “Developing promising ideas into a real-life product that can be successfully adopted by the NHS can be an incredibly daunting challenge which is why we wanted to launch this competition. Over the coming months Medovate and Medipex will work with Liam and his team to use the £5k prize money to further the innovation, including further concept design and prototyping work.
