Medilink North West News - Spring Edition 2015 Medilink North West News - Spring 2015 | Page 7

NEWS
THIRD CALL FOR LCFT
INNOVATION INCUBATOR
Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust’s (LCFT) Innovation
Incubator is recruiting its third cohort of ideas to pursue. The
Incubator opened its doors in 2013 and has since had over 200 ideas
from staff and external organisations submitted for consideration.
Admission into the Incubator means
that innovators are invited to monthly
breakfast meetings with the Trust
Directors to discuss their ideas.
They also receive support from
the Incubator’s partners, including
UCLan, Lancaster University, BT,
Smith&Nephew, DAC Beachcroft and
CapGemini, as well as a grant of up to
£1,000 to pursue their idea.
Glyn Jones, Innovation Programme
Manager at LCFT said: “The Incubator
provides our staff with protected time
and encouragement to pursue their
ideas. We link them with internal and
external sources of advice, expertise
and further funding. All this underlines
the permission they have to innovate
at LCFT.”
Ideas currently being pursued include
hydration management in care homes,
reducing email traffic at LCFT, a
photography based bereavement
support group for adolescents and

psychological therapy handbooks. Next
steps include expanding access to the
Incubator to service users/carers and
recruiting more innovation partners.
LCFT’s work on innovation is recognised
by the North West Coast (NWC)
Academic Health Science Network
as part of their plans for a NWC wide
approach, celebrating the best that each
Trust has achieved by innovating.
For more information visit:
www.lancashirecare.nhs.uk/
about-us/Research-Innovation/
innovation-home/innovationincubator.php

FUTURE CODERS INVESTIGATING
WEARABLE TECH AND CHILDHOOD HEALTH
Medilink North West member Future Coders, is a software
development company currently operating in the personal/social
healthcare space.
The company is currently working
with Digital Creativity in Disability,
Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation
Trust, Liverpool John Moore’s
University and Care Innovation, to
research a product called WarnDry
after receiving £100k funding from the
Small Business Research Initiative
(SBRI) for Healthcare.
WarnDry is a wearable, washable and
wireless sensor system for enuresis.
First phase research looks at alerting
a child when there has been a small
amount of wetting to prevent the bed
being flooded.
If this phase is successful, the next to design a sensor package to identify

what happens just before a child wets
the bed - would require medical testing
and additional funding.
Future Coders’ Max Zadow will lead on
the research into wearable technology
for enuresis. He says, “Liverpool is
leading the way in terms of eHealth
research and the development of
innovative products. This investment
reflects the specialism and creativity
within the city.”
For more information visit:
www.future-coders.com
L@FutureCoders

SERVICING THE
DEMAND FOR
MEDICAL DEVICE
PROFESSIONALS

Medical Engineers is a
specialist retained search
consultancy seeking to
capture the best talent
in the Medical Devices
and Diagnostics (MD&D)
industry for their clients.
2014 saw substantial growth in
the Medical Device market, on
average there were six vacancies
for each engineering candidate.
Available designers were scarce
and software specialists had to
be imported to satisfy demand.
Despite this, the growth in 2015 is
expected to be even higher.
To cope with the increasingly
competitive market, companies
are finding that they need
to rethink their recruitment
strategies. Here are three
suggestions for greater success.
Choose specialists; with years
immersed in the MD&D industry
they will require less handholding
during the initial briefing and be
able to pinpoint new recruits,
faster with greater accuracy.
Make sure your processes
are slick; there is plenty of
competition for good candidates,
so have the processes clearly
defined and people in place to
conduct the i nterviews. If you do
not want to be conducting the
same recruitment again in 3 - 6
months, only work with agencies
that will guarantee staff retention
for 12 months.
Medical Engineers can help
with your recruitment plans in
2015. For more information visit
www.medicalengineers.co.uk

L@MedEngineers

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