Sharps and Clinical Waste Management in Durham

North of Darlington is the medieval city of Durham, a UNESCO world heritage site steeped in legend. Some say this city was founded in 995AD by divine intervention, when a group of Lindisfarne monks carrying the body of the famed healer St Cuthbert were forced to stop on the hill at Warden Law, no matter how hard they tried they couldn’t move his bier any further. 

St Cuthbert appeared to one of the monks and told him he must be taken to ‘Dun Holm’. None of the monks knew where it was or how to find it until a chance meeting with a milkmaid on Mount Joy, who had lost her Dun Cow at Dun Holm.

Taking this as a divine sign the monks followed her to the River Wear, where they built the first iteration of Durham Cathedral, now replaced by the splendid Norman building (seen in Harry Potter films). Still a place for religious pilgrimage, one can discover the Treasures of St Cuthbert including his coffin, a garnet and gold pectoral cross and ivory comb.

In the middle ages Durham was run by the Prince-Bishops, as long as they remained loyal to the king, they could appoint their own military, parliament and mint their own coins. From 1071 till 1831 every bishop was a Prince Bishop; it was 1538 when Henry VIII put an end to some of their powers and also ordered the destruction of the Shrine of St Cuthbert.

Today, the heart of the city beats in Durham University, one of the most prestigious in the UK and the spectacular Durham Castle built during the Norman conquest to defeat the Scots is now home to students and the Centre for the History of Medicine and Disease.

Durham is the birthplace of Neil Fingleton, Britain’s tallest man who played Mag in Game of Thrones before passing away in 2017, English Mustard, the very first Soccer World Cup winning team and a plethora of historical and natural treasures, as well as a place where healthcare is paramount for the local community.

Durham Healthcare Waste Managed... Clinically 

Sharpsmart is proud to be a local partner to hundreds of clinics, NHS trusts and patient-care facilities in England’s North East; and headquartered just 10 minutes down the road in Spennymoor, we are as local as you can get.

Sharpsmart was founded as an “alternate” medical waste company. What do we mean by this? Quite simply, that we wanted to introduce a hospital waste management model that was founded on safety, sustainability and innovation, not just a repackaged waste hauler business that is only focused on picking up waste from a loading dock. In our 18 year history, we have accomplished our vision of benchmarking a new safer model of clinical waste management; here’s some of what sets our model apart:

• We serve our customers directly and take full ownership of the customer journey and results  
• Waste audits and corrective KPI’s at a department level drive reduced costs
• Clinical Waste Education upskills clinical staff on best-practice safety and segregation behaviours
• We provide the only safety-designed reusable sharps and clinical waste containers in the UK
• Our verify program helps your staff easily designate waste into the right bin
• Our passion for quality and customer excellence undergirds everything we do
• Our people are AMAZING! Just wait til you meet them

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Our Story and What Drives Us

Sharpsmart UK was founded by visionary and entrepreneur Dan Daniels, who invested his microbiological passion into developing the world’s first reusable sharps container designed to prioritize the safety of healthcare workers. Since its founding, Dan’s safety engineered containers have eliminated an estimated 90,000 needlestick injuries and ushered in a new global benchmark of needlestick safety.

From these humble beginnings, the notion of a reusable healthcare waste container grew to support other waste streams – and countries. The Sharpsmart has now expanded across Australia, Canada, the US, and the UK. A unique solution so well-loved by both clinicians and our founders, we named the business after it – Sharpsmart! Each year this safety-engineered container reduces the amount of single-use plastic going to landfill by hundreds of thousands of tonnes while being a distinctive safety barrier to needlestick injuries. Learn more about our story here.

Now that we’ve explained our roots – let’s capture all the services we can provide:

• Reusable sharps containers and sharps waste management   
• Offensive, Anatomical and Clinical waste disposal
• Cytotoxic waste collection and treatment
• Pharmaceutical Waste Management  
• The Collection and Treatment of Chemicals and Controlled Substances 
• Total waste management, i.e. we do everything!  

What if you could shrink your clinical waste?

Don’t worry, we’re not talking about a “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” moment. At Sharpsmart we put equal focus on two factors of all our solutions: education and a tangible container or device to drive a clinical, cost and environmental outcome. The first step to help facilities to lower their overall waste volume and total costs is through proper waste segregation. This occurs through training as well as deploying the right containers in the right position to drive user efficiency and best-practice. We help you develop a waste education strategy – complete with KPI’s and waste audits that prove that your waste disposal needs are being met. Our partners frequently use our Verify Waste Categorisation tool to aid in waste segregation and identification at a user and department level.

Now for the shrinking part – the Vacsmart! This waste shrinkage system is proven to shrink clinical and offensive waste volumes by up to 80% which will often means lower costs during disposal. It is also genuinely very neat to see in action – you can view a GIF of it here. This is just one aspect of how Sharpsmart focuses on the challenge of clinical and offensive waste reduction. The best way to think of it is when your neighbour doesn’t break down all their boxes before putting them in the recycling bin. They just wasted all that space for nothing! And now you can’t put your own boxes in. The Vacsmart eliminates any unnecessary space in clinical and offensive waste bags, creating maximum efficiency for disposal. This solution is fully portable and can be deployed within all clinical areas.

TEST-DRIVE THE VACSMART 

Sharpsmart understands the needs of healthcare facilities in Durham.
Contact us and see how we can help your facility better manage your sharps, clinical and pharmaceutical waste disposal.

01388 810 3130         REQUEST A QUOTE