SMTL Science Award 2017
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SMTL were invited to the 8th RCSEd All Wales Medical & Dental Student Surgical Research symposium at Margam Orangery in October 2017 to judge poster and oral presentations and to present the SMTL award for best science paper. The winner was Gargi Pandey for her poster on "A systematic review and meta-analysis on the effectiveness of Radiofrequency Ablation in patients with low-grade dysplastic Barrett's oesophagus.". Gargi also won the best overall poster award. The photo shows Pete Phillips, Director of SMTL, handing Gargi her award trophy.
SMTL highly commended in NWSSP Staff Recognition Awards event
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SMTL are delighted to have won a Highly Commended award in the Working Together Category at the NWSSP annual Staff Awards, which took place in the Angel Hotel, Cardiff on the 9th June 2017.
The award recognised the close working relationship between NWSSP Finance, Workforce & OD and SMTL during SMTL's move from ABMU HB to NWSSP during the Summer of 2016.
SMTL pleased to announce Matthew Alderman as their new Operations Manager
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Matthew Alderman has been working as a Procurement manager in NWSSP for 7 years, and for this whole period he has been involved with the Non-Luer project and a member of the Welsh Government Wales Non-Luer Connectors Reference Group (WNCRG). In recent years he has also taken on the responsibility for liaising on test programmes being run by SMTL for Procurement Services contracts.
We are pleased to announce that we recently appointed Matthew as Operations Manager for SMTL. Matt's role will continue to include the Non-Luer project and liaison with procurement colleagues, but he will also now deal with other SMTL operational matters and our evolving human factors/usability expertise.
New work programme for NHS England Clinical Evaluation Team
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SMTL have commenced a testing programme for the NHS England Clinical Evaluation Team (CET). The CET reviews and assesses healthcare consumables used by the NHS to identify products that enable staff to provide the highest standard of patient care and deliver the best outcomes for the NHS, and their work will inform the future development of national clinical criteria across various product categories.
SMTL have agreed a work programme with the CET to undertake the testing of advanced woundcare dressings, which they will use as part of their clinical evaluation reports, merging the CET's clinical expertise with SMTL's medical device technical and testing expertise.
SMTL moving to NWSSP from ABMU HB from October 2016
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SMTL have been hosted by ABMU HB (Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Health Board) since its inception in 2009, having previously been hosted by ABMU's predecessors. In 2015, Neil Frow (Managing Director of NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership) wrote to Paul Roberts (Chief Executive of ABMU) requesting the transfer of the Surgical Material Testing Laboratory from ABMU into NWSSP. The last year has involved detailed discussions between SMTL, ABMU and NWSSP, and recently it was agreed that everything was in place for SMTL to change their hosting organisation from October 1st 2016.
Initially, SMTL's clients will see very little difference, as the laboratory will continue to be located at Princess of Wales Hospital in Bridgend. The main difference commercial customers will see will be a different billing organisation and address (NWSSP rather than ABMU). Over the coming months you will also see some slight changes in the livery of web pages and reports to reinforce the new relationship with NWSSP, and in the longer term we anticipate that new services will be developed to support NHS Wales patients and staff, and in particular new initiatives from NWSSP procurement to purchase safer and more effective medical devices.
SMTL and the Procurement arm of NWSSP have a long and fruitful history, extending back over 30 years to the late 1970's when the Welsh Office funded the original Dressings QA Pharmacist post at East Glamorgan Hospital to support Welsh Procurement. SMTL's success has also been bound up with Mid Glamorgan Health Authority and its successors (Bridgend and District NHS Trust, Bro Morgannwg NHS Trust, ABM University NHS Trust, and now ABMU HB), which allowed us the freedom to create innovative services (such as the Biosurgery Research Unit for maggot debridement of wounds) and develop test methods for medical devices which are recognised internationally. We would like to thank everyone at ABMU for supporting us through the last few decades, and look forward to a new and exciting era working with colleagues at NWSSP.
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