News
Network aims to unlock research potential into spinal cord injury
Leading charity, Spinal Research, is driving a major new initiative aimed at unlocking the UK’s potential for cutting-edge research into spinal cord injury. The Spinal Cord Injury Clinical Research Network has been formally launched and brings together clinicians, academics, researchers and potential funders across the UK. It aims to catalyse and coordinate research activity and create a worldclass clinical trials network, testing potential new treatments and therapies for those paralysed after a spinal cord injury.
As part of its three-year funded partnership with the RFU Injured Players Foundation, which supports players who are catastrophically injured while playing rugby union in England, Spinal Research is now able to introduce a dedicated Clinical Research Network Manager and establish the formal structures needed to drive its work. The partnership with the IPF also enables
investment into neuromodulation studies with the aim to bring meaningful change to the standard of care in both hospital and community settings. Dr. Ram Hariharan, a spinal injuries consultant at
the Princess Royal spinal injuries centre in Sheffield, has been coordinating network activities in recent years and is CRN Chair. He said: “There has been a real lack of collaborative research in this area in the UK.
“With a formal research network in place, we
hope to raise awareness and increase collaboration - not only between the 12 Spinal Injury Centres but also Trauma Centres, academics, researchers, and most importantly, those living with spinal cord injuries. “The aim is to create a platform which will
make quality research, in the UK, much easier and attractive to do and participate in, as well as contributing to multi-centre studies nationally and internationally. Thanks to the support from Spinal Research, my hope is there’ll be more collaborative work between academic researchers and all SCI rehabilitation centres nationally and internationally, and that we’ll be able to generate more evidence- based data from the UK.”
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Adding AI to artificial pancreas enhances efficiency
Adding advanced artificial intelligence to an artificial pancreas regulating type 1 diabetes is safe and improves the system’s efficiency, a first-of-its-kind study from the University of Virginia Center for Diabetes Technology has found. In the new study, UVA researchers compared an advanced experimental artificial pancreas system – which automatically monitors and regulates blood sugar for patients with type 1 diabetes – with an artificial pancreas algorithm that incorporated AI, described by the research team as a “Neural-Net Artificial Pancreas.” The AI-supported artificial pancreas kept
participants’ blood sugar in the target range for an almost identical amount of time as the advanced system while significantly reducing computational demands. The increased efficiency could allow the developers to implement the system, in devices with low computational power, such as an insulin pump, the researchers say. “So far, this is the first clinical trial of a data- driven artificial pancreas system, which used an extensively trained neural network to deliver insulin automatically,” said Boris Kovatchev, from the UVA Center for Diabetes Technology.
NHS England to adopt new methodology for procurement
The NHS in England is developing a new methodology for assessing ‘value’ that will put patient experience and outcomes, and an assessment of whole system costs, at the heart of procurement decisions, for the first time, rather than just item price. The new methodology is being shared with NHS
procurers and suppliers to help quantify the extent to which one product would compare to others in terms of patient health outcomes, removal of steps from the patient pathway, such as recurrence of infections requiring treatment, and hidden costs such as laundry. In future, price will account for no more than 40% of the assessment score. The MedTech Directorate of the Department for Health and Social Care has led on the project which will soon see the methodology being applied to procurement processes for medical products and devices, and is expected to be rolled out across the NHS in England, with a view to it being made formal guidance in the autumn of this year. The new methodology will be embedded in NHS
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purchasing contracts and mandated for use by autumn 2025. The campaign for change was led by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, a former health minister under Tony Blair, and now Patron of the Health Care Supplies Association, who lobbied NHS Procurement Minister Lord Markham at a meeting earlier this year, also attended by Director of Medtech Policy and Procurement at Whitehouse Communications, Chris Whitehouse. They presented the evidence of a recent case study piloted by global hygiene company, Essity, in partnership with the NHS, where patients upgraded from cheap continence products to a higher value item. The study resulted in an overall cost reduction
due to reduced laundry and staffing expenses, among other factors, illustrating the importance of long-term thinking in procurement. The results of the study indicated that the NHS could save half a billion pounds by implementing a best value procurement framework for the purchase of continence products alone.
Lord Hunt, a former Labour Health Minister commented: “Who would have thought that the humble absorbent continence pad could have such an impact, so quickly, on something as important as NHS procurement policy and practice - but it shows what can be delivered when a campaign for change is built upon irrefutable evidence. “That change will be a win-win for patients,
for carers and for NHS and social care providers alike, particularly when it is taken forward in a constructive, cross-party campaign.” Richard Maddison, from Essity, said: “This is a
groundbreaking approach and we’re delighted that our case study about the benefit to patients and reductions in hidden costs such as laundry, carers’ time, and relapses, provided some of the initial evidence that cheapest is neither best for patients nor best for NHS whole system costs.” Chris Whitehouse added: “This is a real paradigm shift in NHS procurement, and I am convinced that it will prove to be a major long-term boon for the finances of NHS England.”
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