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Bath Trolley

The Technology

Burns are most common in children under three years old.  There are approximately 6,400 children admitted into either general hospitals or those with specialist burn services in the UK per year.
 
Infection is a common complication in a burns patient due to the lack of barrier protection provided by the damaged skin.
 
Infection increases length of stay and increases the risk of death in severely burnt patients .  Hence, burn wounds are cleaned regularly.
 
Current bath trolleys are designed to submerge the wounds in water during cleaning.  However, such immersion may increase the risk of an infection spreading (e.g. faecal contamination) from one area of the body to another.  Thus, at the Manchester Children’s Hospital, wounds are cleaned using a showerhead with the patient lying over the bath.
 
Miss Mamta Shah, Consultant Burns and Plastic Surgeon, working in the paediatric burns unit at Manchester Children’s Hospital (the largest paediatric burns unit in England), has developed a design for a new bath trolley that can accommodate all patients from babies to adults and can be used to clean the wound using a showerhead.
 
 
 

The Advantages

  • Adjustable to different patient sizes
  • Allows wounds to be irrigated without immersion in water
  • Easy to clean (infection control)
 

The Potential Market

There are burns units across Europe and some very large specialist burns units in the US.  There are about 40,000 hospitalisations in the US per year as a result of burns (adults and children) and there are about 125 hospitals with specialised burn units in the US, averaging about 200 admissions per year .

 

The Opportunities

We are seeking a commercial partner experienced in the development of patient bath trolleys.  A licence arrangement or a collaborative development project, are both possibilities.

The Contact

For more information about this or other technologies available for commercialisation through TrusTECH, contact:
 
 
Dr Joanne Thomas
Senior Technology Manager
TrusTECH
The Innovation Unit
1st Floor, Postgraduate Centre
Manchester Royal Infirmary
Oxford Road
Manchester
M13 9WL
 
0161 276 6965
joannethomas@trustech.org.uk

 

1. National Burn Care Review: http://www.bapras.org.uk/UploadFiles/National%20Burn%20Care%20Review.pdf

2. JP Klein and ML Moeschberger (2003).  Survival Analysis: Techniques for Censored and Truncated Data.  Springer (edition 2).
3. http://www.ameriburn.org/resources_factsheet.php