Paramedics win innovation award

The men developed a better way to restrain children going to hospital

Two paramedics have won a prize for best innovation within the health service.

Keith Colver and David Fitzpatrick, from the Scottish Ambulance Service, designed a restraint for critically ill children being taken to hospital.

It replaced the practice of adjusting adult restraints, which sometimes failed to fit small children properly.

They won the best NHS Scotland innovation prize at the Scottish Life Sciences Awards.

The pair beat competition from medics working at the cutting edge of new technology.

Having previously worked in Edinburgh and Lanarkshire, they now spend much of their time doing university research.

Commercial production

Their design for a restraint for children weighing up to 45kg has now been put into commercial production.

Sandy Allan, chief executive officer of Scottish Health Innovations Ltd, said: "There is no one better placed to devise new and innovative ways to improve patient care than those who deliver it.

"This innovation from the Scottish Ambulance service will provide a much needed solution to a problem experienced by ambulance services across the UK".

Others shortlisted for the award were a team based in Glasgow hospitals who developed a new stimulator to help those with a temporary blindness condition, and a Glasgow Caledonian University team who invented prism glasses to help patients facing phantom limb pain.

The awards were organised by Scottish Enterprise.