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Particularly In the elderly, urinary tract infection is a common problem, it s often associated with catheter use. It can become very severe, with rapid onset of confusion and can be very disturbing for both patient and carers. This results in many ambulance-delivered A&E admissions. We aim to develop a low-cost device which can be used in the home/care-home setting to indicate the presence of an infection in the urine and show which antibiotics can be used to treat it. It will be faster than the current microbiology lab testing and will allow initiation of antibiotic treatment without hospital admission.

5% of emergency medical admissions to hospital in the UK are caused by heart failure and 90% of those are related to fluid overload. Treatment resistant fluid overload in heart failure requires hospital administration of intravenous diuretics. This is costly and related to risks such as kidney injury. Renephra transdermal technology offers gentle treatment that can be applied at home using existing community nurses services, reducing risk of complications, improving quality of life and reducing hospital admissions.

Advanced Care Plans (ACPs) have been shown to significantly reduce pressure on Emergency and Urgent Care services. Trials have resulted in a 37% reduction in unscheduled A&E visits for patients in the last year of life and an average saving per person of £2,102. Currently ACPs may only be made and stored with a patient’s care record by medical professionals. Farewill & HELIX are developing the first patient-facing ACP tool, aiming to dramatically increase the number of people making these plans - reducing unnecessary and traumatic hospital visits at the end-of-life.