A GROUND-BREAKING deal has been struck between staff and researchers in Oxfordshire's NHS and commercial firm Drayson Technologies.

The agreement, worth £5m over five years, will see technology pioneered by Oxford University scientists in hospitals tested and distributed across the NHS and overseas.

Royalties from the products will be received by Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and the products stand to benefit millions of patients in the UK.

Among the technologies set to be commercialised is the System for Electronic Notification and Documentation (SEND), which was rolled out across OUH sites last year and replaces paper bedside charts with tablet computers, recording vital signs and cutting nurses' time by up to 30 per cent.

Peter Knight, chief information and digital officer at OUH, said: "I am delighted that the trust and the university have reached this agreement with Drayson Technologies.

"Working together will allow us to bring technologies that we invent and develop together to our patients faster.

"We will also be able to reinvest royalties from the results of research and development created back into our services for the benefit of our patients."

Earlier this year a licensing agreement was signed with Drayson to develop and test the SEND system, as well as GDm-Health, an app for pregnant women with diabetes and EDGE-COPD, which offers software for managing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Technology was created and trialled by the Oxford Biomedical Research Centre, a partnership between Oxford University and the county's acute hospitals.

As part of the deal Drayson, which was founded in 2015 by former Labour science minister Paul Drayson, will also sponsor further research.

Professor Lionel Tarassenko, head of the university's department of Engineering Science, said: "Our work with wearables, smart devices, and machine learning algorithms has enabled the delivery of real-time, personalised healthcare to patients where it is most needed, from the hospital to the home.

"The partnership with Drayson gives us a unique opportunity to accelerate the development and deployment of these products across a wide spectrum of conditions."

Lord Drayson added: "Chronic disease affects the lives of millions of people as well as accounting for around 70 percent of NHS costs.

"Digital health technologies offer the potential to make a huge difference for these people and save money for the NHS.

"This will ensure that there is a pathway from invention to commercialisation for digital health products created in Oxford that will deliver benefits to patients and reinvestment back into the university and the NHS trust."