NeedleSmart’s hardware and data software solutions will empower Alder Hey to accelerate clinical innovation and expand technological healthcare capabilities.

NeedleSmart, a globally unique solution to needle safety, sustainability, and closed loop data, today announced it is entering a new co-development partnership with Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust, one of Europe’s leading paediatric healthcare institutions.

Through this alliance, Alder Hey will work directly with NeedleSmart as they bring forward their multi-facetted hardware and software solutions to the healthcare markets.
Alder Hey will work alongside the team at NeedleSmart in a co-development plan that consists of three phases:
- Clinician and patient safety enhancement
- Sustainability to recycling pilot
- Clinical workflow and data transactions
The NeedleSmart PRO, NeedleSmart’s flagship product, uses unique and patented
technology to take a used and contaminated hypodermic needle immediately after use and
in just 6 seconds, heats the needle to in excess of 1300C. At that precise moment, the
NeedleSmart PRO compresses the needle, reforming it into a safe “ball” of metal at the end
of the syringe. The resulting “non-sharp” is free from virus and bacteria, and with no needle
in sight, what was a hypodermic needle is no longer capable of becoming another Needle
Stick Injury (NSI).
Alongside the immediate safety enhancements to clinicians, using the NeedleSmart PRO
product may well be about to form the cornerstone of a cutting-edge program of
sustainability that may in the medium term offer the possibility of recycling in a market that is
currently entirely carbon positive.
The final piece to the NeedleSmart puzzle is the introduction of their data agnostic software
platform CWS and DVS (Clinical Workflow System / Digital Vaccination System). DVS is
just one of the many possibilities presented by CWS, a software platform built around
digitising the clinical event at the exact moment the needle is destroyed, allowing a unique,
data neutral record to be created in real time that can be pushed directly to any medical
record software.
NeedleSmart will work with the innovation team and wider clinical teams at Alder Hey to
ensure the product adds real value to the clinical environment, offering efficiencies and
benefits wherever possible.
Claire Liddy, Managing Director of Innovation at Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust
said:
“At Alder Hey we want to ensure that we are always sitting on the leading edge of clinical
innovation. In the case of NeedleSmart, we have found a product solution that offers a
number of innovation drivers to build from. The team at NeedleSmart are constantly challenging conventional thinking around sharps disposal and what benefits could be
achieved at that moment.
“We want to ensure we are associated with businesses that have the potential to make a
real difference. NeedleSmart is one such business, at a time when co-worker safety,
sustainability, and innovation are so important, disruptive technologies have a critical role to
play. We have been assessing the viability of NeedleSmart in the background during our
first Covid-19 vaccination program and look forward to working together on a more formal
basis”.
Cliff Kirby, CEO of NeedleSmart, said; “Coming from a product development background, I
know all too well that any product only succeeds with the blessing of the end user. This
ethos sits at the centre of the Alder Hey Innovation Centre and we are really excited to work
with the team on a co-development strategy that could have such a huge and positive
impact in the medical environment. Having watched the team at Alder Hey deliver the first
round of Covid-19 vaccinations, it is an absolute privilege to be associated with an
organisation who quite clearly take a challenge head on and deliver a solution in a way that
is second to none. Alongside this, we have been blown away by the enthusiasm and ideas
brought forward, not only with regard to safety but equally to the wider sustainability target of
carbon net zero by 2032 within the NHS. This partnership represents a huge step forward
for NeedleSmart”.
To enquire or learn more about NeedleSmart’s solutions, please contact Julie or visit their website.

NeedleSmart is market leading, patented needle destruction technology engineered in the
UK with offices in Knowsley, Merseyside, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Their award-winning
NeedleSmart PRO needle destruction device has achieved FDA approval as a Class II
medical device, being the first UK company to achieve FDA 510(k) approval (Class II for
Sharps Needle Destruction Device (NDD)).
As well as contributing to the reduction of needlestick injuries and their consequential costs,
the NeedleSmart process has the potential to reduce the cost and increase efficiency of
used needle disposal. NeedleSmart’s innovative technology also offers the opportunity to
move hypodermic needles, syringes and consumables associated with the
injection/vaccination process, away from conventional sharps bins to a solution that allows
recycling to become a possibility. NeedleSmart technology compresses the needle,
significantly reducing the needle footprint leading to a minimum of 50% increase in needle
count per sharps bin.
After the unexpected Covid-19 pandemic and the mass vaccination programme that
followed, NeedleSmart's DVS (Digital Vaccination System) was created to support mass
vaccination programmes, digitalising the vaccination process with every detail being
automatically recorded in the cloud. DVS delivers a single solution that can coordinate every
individual vaccination initiative into a single, coherent vaccination programme.

Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust provides care for over 330,000 children and
young people every year. Alder Hey delivers clinical excellence for all children, for
routine illnesses as well as very complex and rare conditions.

One of four stand-alone children’s hospitals in the UK, it is a national centre for neuro and
craniofacial surgery, a regional centre for burns injuries and a Centre of Excellence for
children with cancer, heart, spinal and brain disease. Alder Hey as an NIHR funded Clinical
Research Facility (CRF) that specialises in the design, and delivery, of early phase drug
trials in children with a wide range of conditions.
The Trust is one of only four epilepsy surgical centres in the UK and one of only two
accredited major trauma centres in the North West. Alder Hey is also a respiratory
Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) surge centre and is the referral centre for
the treatment of congenital heart defects in North West England, North Wales and Isle of
Man. It became the first UK Centre of Excellence for Childhood Lupus in 2010. 
Alder Hey is the first accredited Investing in Children hospital in the UK. It has a dedicated
patient experience programme which includes the award-winning Alder Hey Arts involving
music therapy, dance programmes, storytelling and animation projects. It is also one of a
few hospitals to have a Children and Young Person’s Forum. 
 
Alder Hey opened a new hospital ‘Alder Hey in the Park’ in 2015. Europe’s first hospital in a
park, the new facility provides a purpose-built, unique and world class healing environment
for children and young people. 
 
Alder Hey is supported by The Alder Hey Children’s Charity which aims to raise vital funds
for lifesaving equipment, research projects and patient experience initiatives.

For more information visit AlderHey and AlderHey Charity.