News story

COVID-19: Call for rapid sanitising technology for ambulances

Do you have an innovative or novel approach to get ambulances cleaner quicker to help combat Coronavirus?

• From: Defence and Security Accelerator, Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, Welsh Government and Innovate UK
• Published: 25 March 2020
• Last updated: 2 April 2020 — See all updates

Thanks to an amazing response from industry and academia, we have now closed this Innovation Focus Area. We are still interested in wider innovations which could help the Armed Forces in their fight against Coronavirus.

The Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) is looking for rapid sanitising technology to speed up the time it takes to clean ambulances to help in the national effort against Coronavirus and save lives.

It can take up to 45 minutes to clean ambulances once they have transported a patient suspected of having COVID-19.

Some ambulance cleaning centres can also be some distance away from their base or hospitals – adding strain and delay on an already busy and pressurised service as the vehicles cannot be used until cleaning is completed.

DASA has today launched a new Innovation Focus Area as part of its Open Call for Innovation seeking industry’s help to identify rapid sanitising technology solutions that can be demonstrated in a live trial on an ambulance.

Solutions must be suitable for rapid deployment to clean public sector vehicles following the transport of patients with the COVID-19 virus.

Ideally solutions will have wider applicability than just ambulances, which might include, buses, trains, and other blue light services or even in hospital wards/rooms.

Solutions which are mobile, allow ease of operation and maintenance, robust and reliable are of particular interest.

More details can be found here.

DASA is working in conjunction with the Welsh Government, The Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) Centre of Excellence, the Welsh Ambulance Service, Innovate UK, and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl).

Published 25 March 2020
Last updated 2 April 2020 + show all updates

1. 2 April 2020

   Removed line suggesting 1 April end date for this Innovation Focus Area as it has rolled into the new cycle of Open Call.

2. 25 March 2020

   First published.