You know us as UK Medical, but we are evolving…..
From 1st February, as part of a rebrand, we will be changing our name to It’s Interventional Ltd. We are excited about our transformation, and we hope you will be too!
UK Medical has a long history in the Interventional Radiology space and our business is continually evolving. We strive to bring innovative technologies to market with personalised service. As an SME we have big plans! In 2021 we acquired Neurologic Europe, which widens our Interventional portfolio and our footprint across the UK & Ireland.
Our evolution to the new brand enables us to focus on our core business in the interventional space. Our product portfolio is expanding, but our values and ethos are not changing. We will still put the patient at the heart of everything we do. We’re still a bunch of passionate people, we’re still an independent SME. We’re just the same on the inside, but we will have a shiny new company name on the outside. We will continue to bring you exciting, innovative, and pathway-changing technologies and focus on added value through service. Although we will be a little bit sad to wave goodbye to our UK Medical name, we feel the time is right for us to spread our wings, tell our story and bring our passion and enthusiasm for all things Interventional to the fore. For us, we feel this brand evolution better represents who we are and what we do.
Watch this space as we countdown to the launch of our new brand and new website…
We’re delighted to announce we have just welcomed 2 beehives to our site as part of our ongoing efforts to support the environment, just in time for World Environment Day (5th June 2021). Protecting the environment is very important to us, so much so that we even have an ISO Accreditation (ISO: 14001: 2015) specifically aimed at reducing our overall impact on the environment.
A big part of our company ethos revolves around our environmental standard to support the environment, with an emphasis on reducing our carbon footprint and safeguarding nature for future generations, which is where the bees come in.
“Bees are important to us at UK Medical, we often talk about our office being a ‘hive of activity’ and bees actually feature on our internal communications, so we’ve taken that one step further by getting our own beehives. We’re really excited to have our own bees, we’ve placed 2 hives and when they are full, they will house approximately 140,000 bees!”
Leanda Smith, Quality Manager at UK Medical commented.
The bees were placed by Sheffield based company ‘More Bees Please’, who had been preparing the bees for a few months, ready to move them to their new home here at UK Medical.
“We’re thrilled to have the bees here; we’ve been working towards this for quite a while so it’s great to finally welcome them to their new home. We had a great day getting them settled in and learning all about them. The sad fact is that bees are endangered, so we hope that by providing a home for 2 hives we’re going to make a difference and of course, we’re looking forward to having our own honey!”
Ian Aaron, MD at UK Medical
As part of our preparation for getting the hives, we have planted wildflowers around our site too to make sure the bees have easy access to some food, and we hope to install a living wall close by soon too. Installing the beehives forms just part of our environmental objectives for the year, with plenty more to come, including reducing our carbon footprint, using 100% environmentally friendly packaging and distributing Beebombs to encourage the planting of more wildflowers.
Find out more about our ISO Accreditations here.
Watch the video below of the day we welcomed
our bees to their new hives...
Protecting the environment is very important to us, so much so that we even have an ISO Accreditation (ISO: 14001: 2015) specifically aimed at reducing our overall impact on the environment.
Environmental sustainability
A big part of our environmental policy is based around reducing our carbon footprint. We monitor our use of gas, water and electricity and look for ways to reduce the quantity we use. We do this in a variety of ways, such as energy efficient motion senor lighting in the office and minimising the amount of printing we do.
Safeguarding the environment for future generations
Bees are important to us at UK Medical, we often talk about our office being a ‘hive of activity’ and bees and beehives feature on our internal communications. The sad fact is that bees are endangered, with the UK losing 13 entire species of bee since 1900, with a further 35 considered under threat of extinction (1). As part of our efforts to safeguard our environment for future generations, we are working on an exciting project to install beehives on our premises, along with some bee-friendly wildflowers (much like those in our bee bombs – more on those later…) to help them find the food they need. We are really looking forward to welcoming our new bees and our staff can’t wait to try our very own UK Medical honey! We’ll have more updates on this story as is progresses on our News page and our social media.
We’re extremely proud to say that all of our packaging is made from 100% recycled materials, including the bubble wrap and brown packing paper we use to protect our products when they’re being delivered, which are both fully biodegradable.
When we can, we also re-use boxes for our deliveries. If we’re sent something in a perfectly good box, it wouldn’t be right not to re-use it, so we often (around 30% of all orders) send out deliveries in a box that’s not brand new. If you receive a delivery from us, why not reuse that box again? It’s much more environmentally friendly than using a brand new one.
Our Environmental Policy key aims:
- To continually assess our activities to identify areas where our environmental impact can be minimised and to take action to implement this
- To minimise waste by the careful and efficient use of material and energy and to maximise recycling, wherever practical
- To increase employee awareness of good environmental practice through training - encouraging and empowering employees to adopt an environmentally friendly approach, wherever practical
- To include environmental and ethical considerations in investment decisions, where appropriate and consider the environmental costs in resourcing, purchasing, disposal, transport and distribution decisions, wherever possible e.g. by purchasing sustainable products
- To develop an environmental action plan(s) to define our priorities for the year and develop solutions to any problems identified
- To set company objectives and targets against which our performance can be measured.
It’s about Variceal Haemostasis
Originally launched in the UK in 2008 Danis has seen steady growth over recent years within the NHS. However, effective prophylactic treatment and the perceived cost of Danis in comparison to balloon tamponade, coupled with the relatively low yield of patients presenting with acute bleeds, has resulted in slow adoption of the technology.
Danis is the ‘one size fit’s all’ stent that facilitates rapid unguided deployment, to quickly tamponade the bleeding vessel and reliably achieve variceal haemostasis.
- Pre-loaded stent provides ‘out of the box’ deployment
- Easy step by step deployment guide
- Designed to be placed without image or visual guidance
- Gastric balloon facilitates accurate placement at the GOJ ‘every time’
- Provides a bridge to definitive treatment for the underlying condition
- Significant improves patient QOL
- Reduction in overall SAE’s compared to balloon tamponade
- Reduced stay in ICU/HDU
- Improved palliation for compassionate end of life care
It's about cost saving
“Studies show that Danis stent is better than the balloon tamponade device (a balloon inflation device that compresses the bleeding veins) in controlling bleeding in the short term. It can stay in place for up to 7 days. This is longer than the balloon tamponade, which needs to be removed after 24 hours. This allows more time to stabilise the person before their next treatment and also means that they do not usually need to stay in intensive care. Cost analysis concludes that Danis stent is cost saving compared with balloon tamponade because it reduces the number of days a person needs to stay in intensive care”
NICE MTG57 31st March 2021
The average saving in scenario 5a of the NICE MTEP appraisal relating to typical UK clinical practice is £2,424 per patient. Danis is expected to reduce the number of days a patient spends in ITU by 2.4 days, representing a huge cost saving, whilst also improving patient outcomes.
“The committee noted that the estimated difference in length of ICU stay had the greatest effect on the direction of the cost case results. Clinical experts estimated that length of ICU stay for the Danis stent group is 3.6 days, and 6 days for the balloon tamponade group. The EAC did a threshold analysis for this parameter and reported that Danis stent would be cost neutral or cost saving when the balloon tamponade group had an increased length of ICU stay of 0.6 days or more compared with the Danis stent group.”
NICE MTG57 31st March 2021
More about the Danis Stent
The Ella Danis stent provides a fast, safe and effective treatment option for patients with refractory oesophageal variceal bleeds.
Designed to tamponade oesophageal varices whilst maintaining normal dietary intake and minimising the need for high - dependency observation, Danis can stabilise your patient allowing time to plan future treatment options and improve patient outcomes.
Benefits of the Danis Stent
- Improved patient quality of life compared to balloon tamponade
- A 2010 study concluded, ‘insertion of the SX-Ella Danis stent in patients with refractory variceal bleeding or complications of previous therapy is effective for the control of bleeding’1
- Reduces potential resource-drain on high dependency units
- Can be placed without imaging guidance in emergency situations
- Significantly reduced complications and SAEs when compared to balloon tamponade in acute oesophageal varices1
- Escorsell A, et al., ‘Esophageal Balloon Tamponade Versus Esophageal Stent in Controlling Acute Refractory Variceal Bleeding: A Multicenter Randomized Controlled Trial’ (2016) Hepatology, (Vol 63, No.6)
Take our Questionnaire
Why not take a moment to determine whether Danis can improve your patient outcomes and help to streamline your care pathway. Please take our short questionnaire, it's only 5 questions:
Breast Cancer Awareness Month
October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and with breast screening services now resuming after being effectively paused during lockdown, it is more important than ever to ensure you get checked if you find any symptoms.
Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women in the UK, with one woman diagnosed every 10 minutes. One in seven women in the UK will develop breast cancer in their lifetime.
As with all cancers, the chances of successful treatment are vastly improved the earlier it is caught. It is important to check your breasts regularly for any symptoms and see your GP if you do notice any changes. Most breast changes are not caused by cancer and noticing an unusual change doesn’t necessarily mean you have breast cancer, but it’s important to get anything unusual checked by your GP.
Common signs and symptoms of breast cancer:
- Lump or swelling in the breast, upper chest or armpit – you might feel the lump but not be able to see it
- A change to the skin, such as dimpling or puckering
- A change in the colour of the breast – the breast may look red or inflamed
- A change to the nipple, for example it has become pulled in (inverted)
- A rash, crusting or changes around the nipple area
- Any unusual liquid discharge from either nipple
- Any changes in size or shape of the breast
- Pain in breasts all or most of the time – on its own occasional pain is not an indication, but continuous pain can be
Checking your breasts
Take a few minutes to check your breasts for any changes on a regular basis. Monitoring them regularly can help you identify changes. You don’t need any training to check your breasts, there is no special technique, just be sure to check your whole breast area, armpits and your upper chest area.
It’s as simple as TLC:
TOUCH – Can you feel anything unusual?
LOOK – Can you see any changes? Does anything look different?
CHECK – If you notice any changes, get them checked out with you GP
For more information you can visit the Breast Cancer Now website
Click here to find out more about our Breast Biopsy Solutions Portfolio.
