The UKs Dept. of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has published a policy paper entitled Design for Life roadmap.
- The Design for Life programme is an initiative of the medical technologies and innovation directorate in DHSC dedicated to delivery of a circular approach to medtech.
- Circularity in medtech means designing, procuring and processing medical products in a way that enables them to be reused, remanufactured or recycled, preserving their value for as long as possible.
- The programme has been developed by a collaborative of more than 80 stakeholders from the UK medtech industry, the health family and academia with wide support across the sector.
- This roadmap divides the programme into 6 problem statements which set out the fundamental challenges that will be addressed to develop and embed a circular system. The problem statements are:
- Leadership and alignment : unclear direction and misaligned strategies across the value chain lead to inconsistencies, inefficiencies and inertia, hindering meaningful, coordinated progress.
- Behavioural change : the medtech landscape is one in which linear products are the default choice, maintained by a lack of value placed on circular systems and limited support for change.
- Commercial incentivisation : stakeholders are insufficiently incentivised, or in some instances are disincentivised to choose and deliver circular solutions.
- Regulations and standards : UK regulatory regimes and technical standards predate circularity and have potential to further enable the medtech sector to recognise opportunities and align internationally.
- Physical and digital infrastructure: the existing physical and digital infrastructure and supporting services hold back the scaling of circular solutions, both locally and nationally.
- Transformative innovation: the innovation ecosystem is not tailored to circular objectives, impeding development of solutions.
- By addressing these challenges, the programme will aim to deliver a circular system by 2045.
In tackling the above problem statements, the programme seeks to achieve 4 primary objectives. These are:
- Boost UK growth: Introducing a circular approach to medical technologies will create skilled jobs and growth opportunities in supporting industries such as decontamination and materials recovery
- Improve NHS resilience: By reducing reliance on volatile supply chains and growing local capacity to meet demand, circularity will protect health systems from global supply shocks.
- Reduce waste and emissions: Circular approaches to medtech will reduce waste and carbon emissions
- Generate substantial cost savings: Circular devices are often more cost-effective than single-use. In several case studies, savings of more than 50% can be realised compared to conventional single-use equivalents.
Source: gov.uk