Flexible, Intelligent and Environmentally Efficient Anaesthesia Machines

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Anaesthesia machines have provided most of the emergency extra critical care needs required during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, issues in the use of these machines for intensive care ventilation such as moisture control, unfamiliar user interfaces and basic ventilation modes unsuitable for unwell COVID patients were highlighted. The potential benefits of being able to use volatile anaesthetic such as Sevoflurane but absence of required scavenging in intensive care was also apparent, especially when IV sedation stocks nearly ran out. Volatile anaesthesia is changing due to environmental pressure on these compounds with high global warming potential- they make up 5% of the NHS carbon footprint and are now a target of government guidelines and targets.Anaesthetic recycling systems have been developed and are coming to market in 2021 with the potential to change a mature anaesthetic machine market with little significant innovation for many years. The current stock of anaesthetic machines are not designed to work well with these systems and therefore, there is an opportunity to develop anaesthetic machines that are capable of the flexibility and performance required post-pandemic and also that are environmentally efficient to deliver the future of anaesthesia and allow use of volatile anaesthetic agents throughout the hospital space without scavenging and piped gas systems. This has the potential to significantly reduce infrastructure costs for the NHS in excess of the anaesthetic machine costs.This project is to develop, test and build two prototype anaesthetic machines that are optimised for recycling systems and flexibility, based on intellectual property from Peninsula Medical Technology. The technology provides a way to integrate the needs for environmental efficiency with the lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic and generate the next generation of anaesthetic machines. It also provides the necessary regulatory input and independent assessment of environmental goals required.The anaesthetic machine market is a mature market with limited innovation and high barriers to entry, led by companies in the USA and Germany. The changes from COVID-19 and environmental pressures enable space for new technologies and entrants that would typically be denied. This is assisted by access to developed ventilator technologies from the UK ventilator challenge to generate a UK-based solution.