Northampton General Hospital pharmacists brains behind gadget which could save millions for NHS

A gadget invented at Northampton General Hospital could save the NHS millions through avoiding waste of valuable drugs.

The ingenious device is essentially a ruler but can measure exactly how much liquid is inside a bottle without risking spillage by unscrewing the top.

Great Ormond Street Hospital is among the first to place orders after a testing at NGH and elsewhere showed a 35 percent reduction in unaccounted loss of controlled liquid drugs.

Estimates revealed the rulers could save the UK's 192 trusts NHS £1.2 million a year.

Dispensary manager Rosemary Griffiths and pharmacist Siobhan Abrahams got their heads together to invent the device.

Rosemary is now CEO of her own company eezyCD, splitting time with working part-time as a locum pharmacy technician at NGH.

She said: "For the first time, nurses can check the balance of their liquids whenever they want.

"It only takes seconds and they can then cross-reference against their paperwork to identify which nurses had administered drugs, the volume given, and which patients had been administered to.

“Nurses were excited because they wanted the rulers and we had the hospital's complete support in delivering them.”

The device started life as a bit of cardboard with marks on it which Siobhan created for the spot checks.

Rosemary added: “I saw the card and had a lightbulb moment. What if we could take Siobhan’s marks and come up with an actual ruler that others could use?”

Rosemary's chartered surveyor husband Tom chipped in by developing a formula for measuring bottles of any shape and size before she spent months working with manufacturers to develop a shatterproof, embossed plastic version of the rulers.

The eezyCD created a link between Northamptonshire University Hospital Group and the world-renowned innovation hotbed Queen’s University, Belfast, and was developed with support from Kay Faulkner, the group's associate director of research, innovation and education

She said: “This signals the start of much greater support for innovation and research across the hospital group.

“The licence deal for eezyCD is our first as a hospital group and signals our commitment to supporting our workforce to be clinical entrepreneurs.”