The movement and handling of patients is a demanding task for caregivers across community care and hospitals alike. This basic care requirement can involve multiple carers to simply reposition a patient in bed. Healthcare has one of the highest rates of occupational injury, costing the NHS an estimated £400 million each year; these injuries impact the mental wellbeing of nurses, affecting their long-term ability to perform their job, and contribute to work absences.
Vendlet is an innovative range of bed mobility aids which increase the capacity of individual carers to move patients. Comprised of motorised rollers, a hand-held control, and a sliding sheet, the product can be fitted to most profiling beds. Winding of the sheet moves the patient within the bed, allowing a single person to turn and administer care. Felgains, a UK distributor of Vendlet, have found success for the product in community care where it can reduce the potential for injury, release nurse time (reducing the care package cost), and provide quality of life benefits to patients. Now, Felgains hope to bring the benefits of Vendlet to hospitals in the NHS.
Whilst part of KSS AHSN, Unity Insights worked with Felgains and the AHSN’s Industry Engagement team to investigate existing evidence and understand how Vendlet is best positioned to benefit NHS hospitals. We identified several areas within patient handling for which Vendlet is particularly well suited, helping to refine the use case for Vendlet in secondary care. The potential benefits of the product include:
- Preventing musculoskeletal disorders among nurses, especially in the lower back, from repositioning patients in bed.
- Preventing and managing pressure ulcers among patients; improving their quality of life and reducing time spent in hospital.
- Ensuring that patients are turned frequently, according to their personalised repositioning regimen.
Our team proposed future research areas for the product, which would help to evidence further financial and efficiency benefits in secondary care. We are delighted to have identified how Vendlet could best help nurses and patients; we look forward to working with Felgains in the future and following the development of the product.
We’re glad to have utilised the support and services of the Unity Insights Team to help us explore the value that our product could bring to the NHS and to help us understand where we need to focus our resources.
Managing Director
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