Make healthcare safer by preventing accidentally retained surgical items

Surgery is the mainstay of treatment in many health conditions such as cancer and chronic diseases and childbirth brings joy. Every year in the UK, there are around 12 million operations and 750,000 maternity events. Around 1 in 12 people require surgery or go through childbirth each year in the UK.

One of the risks of childbirth or surgery is the possibility that foreign objects may be accidentally left inside. This should simply not happen in this day and age. Surgical swabs are the most common 'retained foreign object', which is also the most common procedural 'never event', a severe clinical incident that is entirely preventable. Other retained items such as needles and instruments are rare. There is good data that these events are under-reported globally due to the implications and litigation, since they are indefensible.

Retained swabs can cause extreme harm to patients, such as reoperations, severe infections, damage to organs, death. They can also cause cancer due to chronic irritation. The direct costs due to this problem to the NHS amount to around £2 billion annually.

The childbirth and surgical environment can be complex and unpredictable, and data shows that 1 in 11 procedures have counting errors.

There is a need for a low-cost medical device to create a robust system to prevent accidental retention. We have developed a docking device that allows users to monitor swabs before, during, and after a procedure, including a method to measure blood loss. This simple, cost-e?ective solution is designed to make it impossible to leave a swab behind. It will help staff deliver care more effectively

Eureka's vision is to make childbirth and surgery safer. This grant will allow product development with patient and public involvement as well as real-world testing.