INVENTIONS by NHS staff in the region, including a chair to help doctors examine children, have been praised.

NHS Innovations, which is made up of a network of regional centres known as hubs, handled nearly 500 ideas submitted by NHS personnel in the year up to March.

Of these, 100 ideas were selected for further development and the NHS Innovations Hubs helped broker licences for 24 of them.

A report published by the Department of Health today gives details of the ideas and inventions generated by the 1.3 million people working in the NHS, which are now benefiting patients.

The inventions include the child imaging chair, which is designed so youngsters do not move around and so enables accurate images to be obtained during kidney scans.

The chair was the idea of Rob Beckwith, a medical physicist at Newcastle-upon-Tyne Hospitals NHS Trust.

The pupilometer was also invented by staff at the Newcastle trust.

Andy Clark, a senior medical technologist, came up with the idea for a portable eye measuring device, which paramedics can use at accident scenes to measure the size and responsiveness of the pupils of head injury victims.

This provides a quick and accurate assessment of the possible extent of their injuries.

Health Minister Lord Warner said yesterday: "The NHS is a rich source of excellent ideas that, if tapped, can provide enormous benefits for the NHS, for the inventors, for the patients and for the UK economy."

There are nine NHS Innovations Hubs across England, the hub for the North-East is based in Sunderland, and there is another in Leeds to serve the Yorkshire area.

Dr Tony Bates, NHS intellectual property advisor and founder of NHS Innovations, said: ''Until the hubs were created, an employee with an exciting innovation had nowhere to go.

"Good ideas leaked out, often going abroad, and any benefits to the inventor, the NHS and UK industry were lost.

"The clinician, technician or researcher can come up with discoveries, which often have the potential to develop into products or innovations in service delivery.

"NHS staff can be at the forefront of invention."

NHS staff with ideas are asked to contact their regional hub. More information is available at www.innovations.nhs.uk