Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust is a large acute NHS trust in the south east of England, providing a full range of general hospital services to approximately 760,000 people across west Kent and parts of East Sussex.
The Trust employs over 8,000 staff and operates across three main clinical sites: Maidstone Hospital, Tunbridge Wells Hospital and Fordcombe Hospital.
The Trust invested in BPR Medical’s Ultraflow Analgesic Demand Valve over a decade ago. Since then, it has become a trusted solution across a multitude of departments and sites.
Clinical Need
Across maternity and endoscopy services, the Trust required a reliable Entonox delivery solution that would:
- Support patient choice in pain relief
- Enable rapid recovery and discharge
- Minimise infection risk
- Reduce maintenance and operational burden
Ultraflow was selected as a robust, patient controlled analgesia solution capable of meeting these needs across multiple clinical environments.
Clinical Deployment
Maternity
The Trust supports over 5,000 births each year, delivered by a multidisciplinary maternity team including midwives, obstetricians, anaesthetists, and maternity support workers.
Ultraflow is used to deliver Entonox across the delivery suites, stand-alone birthing centres and Maternity Triage.
Tracy Thresher, Matron for Delivery suite and Obstetric Theatres, and Andrea Teasdale, Matron for Maternity Outpatients commented, “Ultraflow is a quiet, easy to use device for people in labour. It’s comfortable to hold, lightweight, and our service users really like using it. All service users who choose to use Entonox for analgesia during labour use the Ultraflow device. The simplicity of Ultraflow supports service user autonomy while allowing midwives to focus on clinical care”.
Endoscopy
As national leaders on bowel cancer and bowel scope screening programmes, the Trust performs over 18,500 endoscopy procedures each year.
At Tunbridge Wells Hospital, the endoscopy unit performs approximately 9,000 colonoscopy and flexible sigmoidoscopy procedures annually, of which the Ultraflow supports around 18% of these.
Conclusion
The multisite deployment of Ultraflow Analgesic Demand Valve has enabled Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust to deliver safe, effective, and patient centred Entonox analgesia across maternity and endoscopy services.
Ultraflow has proven to be a reliable, low maintenance solution that supports clinical teams, enhances patient experience, and delivers tangible operational benefits across a large acute NHS Trust.
PDF version of case study available HERE
