Ditto Sustainability thrilled to win CivTech® 3.0's Challenge 6

Ditto Sustainability has been chosen to transform the re-use of products for NHS Scotland. Reducing waste, providing cost savings, and developing skilled jobs; stimulating the Scottish circular economy.

NHS Scotland buys over £2billion worth of goods and services each year. Whilst a large amount of this spend focuses on single-use medical products and pharmaceuticals, NHS Scotland purchases many products (including medical devices) which could be re-used, but current systems mean that these often end up as waste.

Medical devices, such as walking aids and blood pressure monitors, allocated to an individual are often discarded as waste after their ‘first life-cycle'. These items could be remanufactured and tested allowing re-use through multiple life-cycles. It's estimated that over 50% of all items purchased may be suitable for remanufacturing.

Key to this is a way to keep track of the assets, and this does not currently exist. So, Challenge 6 centred on creating an efficient and robust data system to monitor NHS resources; from first deployment through to return, tracking them through the refurbishment processes so that they become fully compliant with NHS standards and ready for re-use.

Ditto Sustainability win CivTech 3.0’s Challenge 6. Working with NHS NSS to help the re-use of products. It’s the #circulareconomy on the #CivTechAccelerator@Scotgoveconomy @digitalscots @NHSNSS @DittoSustain pic.twitter.com/r29dZbaN8i

— CivTechScotland (@CivTechScotland) October 3, 2018

“We are thrilled to have won CivTech® 3.0’s Challenge 6 ‘How can we transform the re-use of products for NHS Scotland?’ and congratulations to CivTech on such an innovative assessment process. The challenge posed is of great significance in sustainability terms, linking a broad range of environmental, social and economic factors.

Managing assets and resources in a circular manner forms the bedrock of our concept proposal. Through the utilisation of best available technologies and AI (artificial intelligence) in particular, our aim is to scale, automate and democratise the knowledge that decision makers need to prevent waste and drive efficiency.

The project represents a considerable challenge due to the scale of NHS Scotland and the diversity of goods and services procured. This was a huge attraction for us as a technology company. The lessons learned here will not only help NHS Scotland but help us to develop a platform approach relevant to any organisation, big, or small.”

– Dan Botterill, CEO, Ditto Sustainability

CivTech brings together public-sector expertise and private sector creativity to solve real problems, developing new products, and delivering better, faster and easier services for everyone.  

Part of the Scottish Government’s Digital Directorate, CivTech’s approach is already helping transform public sector engagement with tech and innovation, delivering significant benefits to public services, and producing genuine uplifts for the Scottish economy. And along the way, it’s making people’s lives better.