A team of hospital researchers and industry partners from Bradford and Leeds have won a prestigious grant to develop a new device set to have a major impact on patient safety.
The funding has been awarded to a team from the Yorkshire Quality & Safety Research (YQSR) Group based at the Bradford Institute for Health Research at Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and colleagues from Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, the Universities of Leeds and Bradford, as well as project partners RoboScientific Ltd and Medipex Ltd.
The award of just over £1million will enable the development and testing of the revolutionary piece of equipment - the ‘NG-Sure’™ - which will make naso-gastric (NG) tube placement, and so NG-tube feeding, safer for patients.
Millions of naso-gastric tubes (NG-tubes) are used worldwide each year in hospital and community settings to give enteral feeds (nutritionally complete feed directly into the stomach) and medicines to patients who are unable to swallow or tolerate oral feeds due to critical illness, stroke, swallowing difficulties, or following surgery.