Medovate, a Cambridge based manufacturer of medical technologies created from within the NHS, has concluded an agreement with Qualitech Healthcare to support the roll out of the SAFIRA system to hospitals in the UK.

Developed in collaboration with NHS clinical innovators, the SAFIRA system aims to help revolutionise standard regional anaesthesia clinical practice. Regional anaesthesia (RA) is widely used to make a specific part of the body numb to relieve pain or allow surgical procedures to be carried out.

Since UK launch in early 2021, interest in the SAFIRA system has grown at pace, especially following the Health Services Journal (HSJ) award for ‘Patient Safety Innovation of the Year 2021’. The new partnership with Qualitech Healthcare marks a further step in making this medical technology available to healthcare providers.

Qualitech Healthcare has expertise in supporting the introduction of medical devices for adoption and use in clinical settings to benefit both clinicians and patients. Through this new agreement the Berkshire based company will support both the positioning of the benefits of the SAFIRA system to NHS and private hospitals and support ongoing roll out of clinical evaluations and adoption discussion using its team of clinical specialists across the UK.

Stuart Thomson, managing director, Medovate, said: “We are delighted to have reached this agreement with Qualitech Healthcare. Their experience in bringing innovative new medical devices to market is significant. Working with Nicki and her team of specialists across the UK will add real value to the offering we can provide to anaesthetists looking to evaluate the SAFIRA system for themselves. We will be able to increase our capacity to effectively engage with an increasing number of regional anaesthetists to continue the roll out of SAFIRA across the UK.”

Nicki Dill, managing director, Qualitech Healthcare added: “Having spent over 30 years working with medical device innovations, Qualitech Healthcare is excited to be working in partnership with Medovate and the roll out of the award winning, ground-breaking SAFIRA technology for safer regional anaesthesia. A true innovation is ‘new’ not an improvement, SAFIRA gives anaesthetists control of improving patient safety, promoting better outcomes for both clinicians and patients, together with potential cost savings. Bringing a new device to market has its challenges but improving patient safety is paramount to the both the NHS and the medtech industry.” 

The award-winning SAFIRA system makes the current two-person procedure a one-person procedure by giving anaesthetists full control without the need for an assistant. The technology also incorporates a safety feature that monitors injection pressure, automatically stopping injection at pressures above a calibrated pressure threshold to reduce the risk of nerve damage. Furthermore, economic modelling has shown the SAFIRA system to have the potential to help deliver significant cost savings.

Following agreement of the new partnership, at the recent Association of Anaesthetists Winter Scientific Meeting (WSM) 2023 in London members of both the Medovate and Qualitech Healthcare teams were in attendance to talk with regional anaesthesia practitioners about the benefits the SAFIRA system can provide.