Sharps injuries represent a significant financial and psychological issue for healthcare professionals. A 2021 survey by the Royal College of Nursing found that 15% of the 7,571 respondents suffered a sharps injury in 2020, and that 21% experienced their last sharps injury during device disposal.
This marks a 50% increase in injuries since the last survey was conducted in 2008. Reasons for the increase include pandemic-induced fatigue, low staffing levels, lack of training and access to safer sharps.1
Owen Mumford has been manufacturing and distributing medical device solutions for 70 years, specialising in safe, practical products that respond to the needs of end users and help improve the lives of countless people. Its safety portfolio covers several medical scenarios to support healthcare professionals in blood sampling, point of care testing, and medicine administration with intuitive devices designed to help reduce sharps injuries.
Owen Mumford’s Unifine® and Unistik® ranges feature safety mechanisms designed with end users in mind, helping to protect and give confidence to healthcare professionals and patients alike.
Unifine SafeControl is an active safety pen needle designed using insight on user experiences of pen needles to provide a balance of safety and control during the injection process. The result is a pen needle that offers confidence of a full dose administration and a needle that is covered on both ends post-injection thanks to its thumb-activated safety guard. Unifine SafeControl is available in 32G 4mm, 30G 5mm and 30G 8mm..
The Unistik venous blood collection range builds on Owen Mumford’s expertise in capillary blood sampling to offer devices combining safe, quality devices with safety mechanisms and blood collection accessories to help improve the clinical experience.
Unistik ShieldLock has flexible, textured wings to ensure a secure grip during procedure and a thumb-activated safety mechanism that covers and protects the needle once it is removed from the vein.
Unistik VacuFlip has been designed for safe and straightforward blood collection procedures, featuring an ergonomic safety guard that flips over the needle once removed from the vein to secure the device and reduce the risk of needlestick injuries.
The Unistik capillary blood sampling portfolio has supported point of care testing across the globe for decades, in various clinical settings for many different patient types with safety lancets designed to provide safe and practical sampling.
The lancet portfolio includes devices using side (Unistik 3) and contact activation (Unistik Touch) to provide control during sampling and feature Owen Mumford’s Comfort Zone Technology®,  producing a statistically significant reduction in pain.2 Unistik TinyTouch offers safe capillary sampling for neonatal care.
For more information on Owen Mumford’s safety devices, visit www.owenmumford.com.
References
1 Blood and Body Fluid Exposures in 2020. Results from a survey of RCN members (2020) Royal College of Nursing, 20 Cavendish Square, London, W1G 0RN; RCN publication code: 009 687. www.rcn.org.uk/publications.
2 Dewland, P. and Edwards, C. (2007). A single-blind, randomised, 8-way crossover study to compare the blood volume and pain perception of capillary blood sampling. UK
