22nd September 2022

Pioneering system protecting healthcare staff from surgical smoke secures place on NHS Welsh framework agreement

A smoke evacuation system developed to keep operating theatres smoke free has successfully won a place on the NHS Welsh framework agreement.

Cardiff-based manufacturer Eakin Surgical is one of the suppliers appointed by NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership to the national framework agreement.

The contract award means the company – a distributor for the CIMPAX® C-PURE 750™ Smoke Evacuation System – can help the NHS across Wales to better protect its staff from the dangers of surgical smoke.

Developed by Danish manufacturer CIMPAX ApS, the CIMPAX® C-PURE 750™ Smoke Evacuation System is widely recognised as the gold standard in smoke evacuation.

Since the early 1980s surgical smoke has been known to be a significant chemical and biological hazard and has been shown to be as mutagenic as cigarette smoke. Electrosurgery devices which use high-frequency current to cut and coagulate tissue are the most common at producing surgical smoke plumes. One study found that on average the smoke produced daily was equivalent to the amount produced by 27-30 cigarettes.

Despite this discovery 40 years ago, the adoption of measures to remove smoke plume from the surgical environment have been slow and inconsistent.

Read the full article here.