ZLX explains how to claim tax rebates for device expenditures

Post-COVID, there was a huge surge in demand for respiratory care devices to meet the demands of the clinical establishments with many new players coming to the market with solutions, but the progression beyond that has been to make the devices lightweight, portable, and suitable for residential use, with the commercial constraints of being profitable in a crowded space with many constituent parts being disposable. 

With the book being opened on the designs, new technology had a chance to be integrated and embed functionality into the devices which may not have previously been necessary. To capture any data for analysis, if a patient is breathing through a mask their inhale and exhale volumes can be monitored through tracking changes in the differential pressure of the patient breathing. With the patient breathing being captured as ‘data’ this can be set to trigger an alarm if there are unexpected changes, or to present a captured profile of breathing at a clinical review.  

If the health indicators can truly be captured and considered as data, then it is not limited to respiratory care as similar principals and advancements are being made throughout the full industry as the level of trust in technology improves. Capturing deviations or changes can be as accurate as 60mbar, so this methodology can lend itself to extended fields like blood pressure analysis, heart rate monitoring, brain impulses for epilepsy diagnosis and negative pressure therapy wound recovery acceleration.  

The technology improvement goes beyond the biometric data that a patient will generate, but it can be seen in the advancements in how care is administered. The data that a patient generates can be the ‘output’, but what about the ‘input’? Where supplementary care needs to be administered, this can also be tethered through IoT systems and loop into the symptoms the patient demonstrates.  

Medical technological advancement will no doubt require multiple disciplines to deliver a robust solution for such a tightly regulated field. No unnecessary risks can be taken and a MTBF rate could be the difference between life and death. The decision to develop a new offering to the medical market can be off-putting when you consider the time, effort and expenditure that would be required to meet the guidelines within a high cost of failure environment.  

Even from the example to the breathing apparatus with IoT connectivity you need a range of disciplines either from your own team or from specialist subcontractors. It needs electrical and electronic engineering for the operation and data gathering, software developers for the data connectivity and control parameters, mechanical engineering for the air flow, and most critically a medical input to ensure that the product is fit for purpose and can effectively function to support the patient.  

These activities can be considered as prohibitive overhead costs as it is going beyond the normal working practices to find new, effective, sustainable solutions. As a means of support for innovation in the United Kingdom, where development has taken place there is help through HMRC to soften the blow of that expenditure.  

Where development has been applied, there are mechanisms available through tax rebate to claim back some of the outlay. This can apply to expenditure right from the beginning of the pre-planning stage through to the release and implementation to cover a portion of team wages, consumables, the cost of prototyping and for the cost of the specialist sub-contractor inputs that may have been required to give you the performance levels required.