The Small Business Research Initiative
Project details
Company brief
SBRI stands for the Small Business Research Initiative. The SBRI have been working with the NHS to find solutions for identified healthcare problems since 2009, bringing together business, health, technology and government partners. Unlike many Research and Development projects which offer grant or match funding, SBRI contracts are 100 per cent funded and the inventor retains the Intellectual Property.
Background
In 2021, Safewell were notified of the “HAARSAIN – Reducing Spread of Airborne Pathogens in Healthcare Practice: Cleaning and Reuse of PPE and Environmental Decontamination in NHS Scotland and Social Care” competition. The application process spanned over several months and Safewell were announced winners in late 2021. There were a number of technologies submitted and the SBRI team evaluated the proposals to find the best fit within their project. EU and UK Technical Standard compliance was a key requirement in this decision. The contract for this project was signed in December 2021 and a project start date of March 2022 was agreed.
Client Challenge
Over the last 2 years, the healthcare facilities have faced the covid-19 pandemic with varying levels of protection. This challenge was introduced by the SBRI to help bring together business, health and technology to conduct a research study to evaluate the reduction in spread of airborne pathogens and prove environmental decontamination with the offered product. Safewell’s Genano purification product was chosen to trial. Prior to this SBRI R&D project, information was available to indicate that ionisation / filtration devices could be used in indoor spaces to reduce the risk of airborne microbial contamination, the premise being that this in turn made the ambient air safer to breathe, creating a healthier environment by reducing the potential for airborne transmission of disease.
The devices manufactured by Genano in Finland were already in use globally in a range of different sectors including schools, GP surgeries, offices in London and hospitals in the Middle East. When it was established during the Covid-19 pandemic, that the main risk of transmission of COVID-19 was airborne, interest in the performance of the technology for possible use to mitigate airborne COVID-19 transmission risk in a range of different settings increased substantially. A key point with this technology is that although it is an ionisation device, the ionisation and its by products are fully contained within the unit. The SBRI commissioned this study to evaluate the effectiveness of this filtration product with Safewell Solutions Ltd.
Discover and collaborate
Before this study commenced, Safewell Solutions Ltd already provided safe, reliable compressed breathing air systems to clients in many sectors for over 20 years and at the outset of the COVID pandemic, used its expertise to research, select and review different available technologies with a view to developing an integrated solution for medical and healthcare applications. It was also known that the NHS in Scotland was looking for solutions and planned to facilitate a small business research initiative (SBRI) competition. Safewell felt that the SBRI competition provided a good opportunity to test and validate new solutions and build a proof-of-concept case study to demonstrate the performance of the technology and hopefully justify its wider deployment in clinical environments.
Objectives
The objectives were agreed with the NHS SBRI team and were formatted in the contract as Milestones. To summarise from the detailed report, the objective was to install the devices in clinical facilities and demonstrate airborne microbial risk reduction by performing "before" and "after" Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) studies, install the devices in clinical areas and then perform a number of "after" IAQ studies over several months to evaluate performance.
Methods
It was agreed that IAQ measurements would be performed and reported by an experienced, independent Occupational Hygienist using field proven measurement methods in accordance with industry best practice. Reference was made to the NIOSH manual of analytical methods for bioaerosol sampling with the sampling equipment being set up each time by a UKAS accredited laboratory. In addition to TVC, yeasts and mould determination, a range of additional air quality parameters were measured including level of oxygen, CO2, CO, Volatile Organic Compounds, average temperature, humidity and air flow speed.
Taking an average of the four clinical areas Safewell studied, the Genano devices reduced TVC levels in air by 62%. In addition to this, the Genano devices reduced mould levels in air by an average of 82%. This is a great result for the study, proving the success of this filtration product.
Running the device in clinical areas consistently reduced airborne microbial levels and from this, we expect there to be a reduction in the risk of airborne disease transmission e.g. COVID-19. Devices were well accepted by clinical staff and patients, with constructive suggestions also being taken on board and passed to the team at Genano.
Testimonial
Kate Cheesbrough, the Innovation Development Manager for NHS Tayside Innovation said The Haarsain Steering group were “delighted” with the standard of Safewell’s final report; feeding back that “it was a pleasure to read”.
Safewell would like to thank the NHS Tayside and the SBRI team for allowing us to complete this project, providing us with the live clinical test locations and for their professionalism throughout the project. We wish to extend a special thank you to Kate Cheesbrough, Innovation Development Manager from NHS Tayside Innovation for the excellent project management and organisation skills helping us stay on track from start to finish, supported by Abby Milne, Project Support.
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