The Design for Life Roadmap recently published by the DHSC puts circularity and sustainability in MedTech front and centre of UK healthcare strategy. To achieve it, new decontamination technologies will be needed, says Andy Davies.
The NHS has been legally committed to Net Zero targets since the Health & Care Act 2022 came into force, with Net Zero from all types of emissions needing to be achieved by 2045. A major contributor to the NHS carbon footprint is equipment which is thrown away after just one use. For example, 133,000 Tonnes of plastic is thrown away each year by the NHS, equivalent to all the household waste generated in Leicester. This dramatic statistic was highlighted in the ‘Design for Life’ roadmap, a commitment from the DHSC to build a circular economy for medical technology (MedTech). This sets the ambitious goal for the UK to have transitioned away from all avoidable single-use MedTech by 2045.
But what defines ‘avoidable’? One major barrier to achieving this goal is that many medical devices are simply not designed to be disinfected using existing technologies. Those that are can be expensive, and reprocessing can present logistical challenges. Clearly new approaches and solutions to reprocessing, decontamination and disinfection are needed if single-use is to become ‘avoidable’. The Design for Life roadmap recognises this in its 30 key actions.
One promising technology platform that is emerging fast is Solid-State LED disinfection. Many will be familiar with UV-C germicidal technology, and there are numerous excellent products currently rolling out across the NHS that use this. The technology is more than 100 years old, but for most of this time has been restricted by the limitations of large, fragile lamps that contain significant amounts of mercury. This restricts products to very narrow fields of use, and often only a single type of device is processable in such equipment. Mercury toxicity requires safeguards to be in place around lamp rupture and disposal. In fact, germicidal use of mercury lamps remains an exemption – fluorescent versions for these lamps for general lighting are now banned under RoHS legislation.
But, just as mainstream lighting transitioned to solid-state LEDs around 15 years ago, UV-C germicidal applications can now do the same. UV-C LED radiation sources are available that are just 3.5x3.5mm in size. On their own, they are still less efficient than mercury lamps, but the beauty of such small light sources is that they can be combined with optical materials that are specifically ‘tuned’ to direct the radiation, thus magnifying the intensity and achieving very high levels of disinfection in very compact machines that can be placed flexibly either in SSDs or close to point of care, with digital connectivity that allows decontamination professionals to oversee compliant usage.
Manufacturing LED based devices does, however, bring its own challenges around product design and quality control. Manufacturers are, however, emerging in this field with experience of working with the LEDs themselves, plus compatible optical, thermal and electrical management systems.
2024 has seen significant advances in Solid State LED disinfection technology, with the first devices on the market now compliant with the BS8628:2022 UV-C surface disinfection standard – something that has not yet been achieved by mercury lamp-based systems. LED chip manufacturers across the globe have almost quadrupled the efficacy of a standard 3535 device in 12 months, so the acceleration of the performance of the technology is on a steep upward curve.
Trialling and specifying a BS8628:2022 compliant Solid State LED disinfection system has the potential to safely and efficiently transform the NHS journey to circular MedTech and, ultimately, Net Zero achievement.
About the author: Andy Davies has a PhD in Solid-State Chemistry and is General Manager of Mackwell Health.
