A specialist business offering decontamination products for the dental industry reevaluated its offer following a workshop with Lancaster University’s Health Innovation Campus (HIC) – leading to the adoption of cutting-edge technology at the heart of the NHS’ battle against coronavirus.

Nigel Bannister owner of Dental Decontamination a specialist company in Lytham St Annes, attended a fully-funded, two-day health innovation workshop after seeing it advertised online - and it provided food for thought for the entrepreneur.

“The experience woke me up,” he said. “I've been in my own bubble, or rather my company has, you get comfortable and don’t realise there’s people out there that you can learn from.

“The workshop taught me to be methodical, think differently and look at all our products through a new lens. I evaluated whether people want them, if there’s a need for it, and decided if it’s better than what’s on the market.”

The programme of business support delivered by the Health Innovation Campus is designed to give organisations the tools to revisit their business strategy and find space to innovate and develop new propositions for health and wellbeing. The workshop Nigel attended saw delegates explore the process of Design Thinking, gauge the value of their offering and look at how to pitch to investors.

He added: “The workshop was a good opportunity to meet other people from different industries. It was professionally done and there was input from all attendees which made for some interesting discussions. I was very impressed, from arrival to leaving the site I thoroughly enjoyed it, the format was superb.

“Since the workshop we’ve had two new products which are major breakthroughs. One is a disinfectant for dental unit water lines. While the other is a new air steriliser called an Airlogia.

For Nigel and his team, it was important to bring an air steriliser to the market which had been effectively tested and proven to destroy pathogens and spores, including COVID-19. “The air steriliser actually gets launched in the next two weeks, and the Nightingale Hospitals have adopted the technology too.”

Health innovation business support from Lancaster University is fully funded through the European Regional Development Fund and available to Lancashire-based SMEs (eligibility criteria applies). To find out more about health innovation business support

visit www.lancaster.ac.uk/health-innovation/businessor contact business.healthinnovation@lancaster.ac.uk