A hospital specialist has invented a new product that manages to reduce plastic and simplify the process of testing urine.
Consultant urologist Dr Nick Burns-Cox has been working on his own innovation, the Pee-In-Pot (PiP) for 10 years.
Made from bamboo and sugar cane, it removes four items from the current urine collection process, three of them plastic.
Mr Burns-Cox, who works at Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton, said he hoped it would cut down the use of single-use plastic in the NHS and reduce the chance of errors.
The PiP is a two-compartment collection device which Mr Burns-Cox said will save health professionals time.
Previously in order to get urine into a 10ml collection tube for lab testing, patients were having to urinate into a sterile bowl where the urine was then syringed into a 30ml tube and sent to the lab where a technician had to pipette into into the correct 10ml tube.
Mr Burns-Cox said: "Not only was it wasting time, but it was wasting materials.
"Lots of single-use plastic was being utilised for every MSU collection."
He also added the old process increased the risk of human error, through mislabelling or contamination.
A man wearing a striped white and blue shirt with grey hair and a beard is smiling at the camera. He is holding a white container. Image caption,PiP designer Steve Swan created the device in his garden shed The PiP device allows staff to tip out excess urine and only use the amount they need which can be easily transferred into the boric acid tube via a special funnel – saving time and reducing waste.
While it was invented by Mr Burns-Cox, it was designed and made by his former neighbour Steve Swan, from Blade Innovations.
Mr Swan, who has since moved to Cornwall, made the PiP from thermofibre, which is a blend of bamboo fibre and sugar cane pulp, formed at high temperatures in clean room conditions.
Date: 26 May