On the first year anniversary of the UK-wide lockdown, and the beginning of 12 months which impacted on everyone’s lives, today marks the arrival of a new piece of life-saving kit which has the potential to transform how clinical teams and first responders carry out CPR in a safe way.
At the outset of the pandemic, frontline clinicians experienced a whole new set of daily challenges and were innovating and breaking new ground every day
In Tayside, Medical Director, Professor Peter Stonebridge, recognised that the nature of the COVID-19 virus meant that droplets of the virus could potentially be released when healthcare teams – or first responders – had to carry out CPR.
In hospitals, teams had Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) when they were carrying out CPR, but that is not always the case for first responders. Even in hospitals during resuscitation of a patient, where speed is critical, putting on PPE correctly to make sure everyone is safe takes time and can cause delays. Professor Stonebridge had an idea that if some sort of PPE could be put on the patient first, this could minimise the risk of spread of droplets of viruses or bacteria and keep patients and staff safe. This is when the SARUS-CPR hood started to take shape.
Professor Stonebridge was able to develop the idea by passing on a model prototype to Scottish Health Innovations (SHIL) and performance manufacturer Keela Outdoors, who brought the SARUS-CPR hood to life in the form of a small lightweight, easy-to-use hood.
The hood has been designed to allow trained CPR responders to easily fit it onto a collapsed patient as soon as they arrive on the scene. This helps to also reduce the time taken to initiate airway ventilation and makes resuscitation much safer for both patients and personnel.
It is made from transparent fabric which creates a barrier between the patient and the individual performing resuscitation and reduces the risk of contamination from bacteria and viruses.
Professor Peter Stonebridge said, “Frontline healthcare workers and care givers have been absolutely vital to our response to the pandemic and out of all of the challenges of managing the spikes of COVID-19, there has been a lot of innovation in healthcare.
“Thanks to the input of other experts in manufacturing and design, the kernel of an idea has been developed into the SARUS-CPR hood and I am very grateful to all the collaborators on this project.”
Mr Rod Mountain, Ear, Nose and Throat Surgeon from NHS Tayside who led the development of the hood with SHIL and Keela Outdoors, said, “As an NHS worker, I am immensely proud to have been part of its development. This has been a genuine collaborative effort between NHS Tayside and Keela, drawing upon fantastic local engineering and garment manufacturing expertise. COVID-19 drove the innovation, prompting us to look at different approaches to PPE, but we now believe its applications go well beyond the current pandemic.”
Keela Managing Director, Ruwan Fernando, said, “We were delighted to be approached by NHS Tayside to be part of the SARUS-CPR hood project. Our team of designers worked in collaboration with the NHS to design, prototype, and engineer the product and we are delighted to be able to launch the SARUS-CPR hood.”
Robert Rea, Head of Innovation at SHIL, said, “The SARUS-CPR hood is a real testament to home grown collaborative expertise, taking clinician-led insight from the NHS and turning it into a tangible device that’s now ready to be launched onto the market. The teams at NHS Tayside and Keela have played a vital role in realising that ambition. Their clinical and manufacturing expertise combined with SHIL’s intellectual property and commercialisation expertise has accelerated launch onto the market.”