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National award for high protein ice cream research at NUH
Research that led to the development of a protein-enhanced ice cream (Nottingham Ice Cream - N-ICE Cream) to improve the nutritional health of older people at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust has received a national award for innovation within the NHS.
Professor Opinder Sahota, Consultant in ortho-geriatric medicine at NUH, and leader of the N-ICE Cream research project, was recognised in the Medipex NHS Innovation Awards and Showcase announced earlier this month.
Professor Sahota said: “This fantastic award win is national recognition for our project by a well-respected external organisation, Medipex Ltd, an award-winning healthcare innovation hub that helps to develop and implement innovations that provide better patient care and improved services. The judges clearly recognised the potential of our project.
“I’m delighted to receive this award, which will help us develop our high protein ice cream project further. The N-ICE Cream initiative is all about helping older patients get the nutrition they need while staying in hospital, when struggling with the oral supplement drinks so we’re aiming to move N-ICE Cream from the research stage into NHS clinical practice following our win.”
Frail, older people who are admitted to hospital after suffering a hip fracture are a patient group of particular concern, as they often need encouraging to consume enough calories to help with their recovery.
The N-ICE Cream, which is protein enhanced and fortified with additional leucine and vitamin D has been specifically developed to improve the nutritional health of malnourished older people and has proved to be popular with patients on the spinal care and orthopaedic wards during trials at Queen’s Medical Centre this summer.
Medipex CEO Lindsay Georgopoulos said: “Many congratulations to all of our finalists and of course our winners, who have provided much inspiration.
“A special congratulations must go to our prize winners including Professor Opinder Sahota with his innovation N-ICE Cream, an innovative approach to reduce malnourishment amongst vulnerable hospital patients, which was winner of ‘Improved treatments, therapies and rehabilitation’ award category and overall winner non-member first prize: package of Medipex support.”
She added: “The range and quality of innovations entered for the awards was inspirational again this year and it is anticipated that many new collaborations - and opportunities for shared learning - will occur as a result of the event.”
This year, the judging panel comprised experts from Medipex Ltd, Medovate Ltd, the Yorkshire and Humber Academic Health Science Network and the NIHR Children and Young People Medtech Co-operative and the NIHR Surgical Medtech Co-operative. According to Medipex, the judges had a “very challenging time” in selecting the finalists from a pool of nearly 50 high-quality entries.
2022 saw the fifteenth running of the Medipex NHS Innovation Awards, which are designed to celebrate NHS staff that have, “gone have gone over and above to find ways to improve patient care”.
The winners spanned four categories and Professor Sahota will be receiving a package of support from Medipex Ltd’s experts to develop the NUH ice cream as a product available on the market and – ultimately - make it more widely available to NHS patients who will benefit from it.