Pioneering inventors in the fields of science and engineering have received a major cash boost from the Government.

The Department of Trade and Industry is ploughing £2.5m into NHS Innovations South East, led by the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust and the Central Laboratories Innovation and Knowledge Transfer (Clik) based at Chilton, near Harwell.

NHS Innovations has been given £1m from the Public Sector Exploitation Fund to help it commercialise innovative healthcare ideas. One project has been developed by Dr Rupert McShane, left, who works at the Fulbrook Centre, at the Churchill Hospital, Headington.

He is working on a tracking device using the Internet and mobile phone technology which could help find dementia patients who go missing.

David Mackintosh, chief executive of NHS Innovations South East, said: "We have more than 100 projects which are starting to make a real difference, so this funding is vitally important." Clik will use its £1.465m award for a range of projects, including the huge Diamond Light Source science facility at Harwell, to help scientists develop new medicines, plastics and textiles, and aid environmental research. It will also go towards spin-off companies from the nearby Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL).

Chief executive Dr Tim Bestwick said: "Big research centres like RAL and Diamond are huge sources of innovation and this funding is recognition of that."