A SOUTH Craven company has been given an £45,000 Government award to develop equipment to help ensure the health of unborn babies.

Viamed, of Cross Hills, has been chosen for a Department of Trade and Industry sponsored Smart award.

These were handed out to 20 firms in Yorkshire this week to provide cash to move from a good idea to designing and building a prototype.

Viamed, which makes machines for the medical industry, wants to make a simulator to re-create the heart patterns of unborn babies.

Its functions would include testing foetal heart monitoring equipment and training medical staff.

Viamed's export manager Stephen Nixon said news of the award meant an exciting time ahead for the company.

"Companies in this country have been held back in the past because similar firms in Europe have been given development grants," he said. "We decided to go for something like that and were successful at the first attempt."

Mr Nixon added that there was no commercially available piece of machinery to test equipment for monitoring the heartbeat of unborn babies.

"If there's a problem, medical workers don't always know if it's caused by the machine or the baby," he said.

"We hope to get around this problem and with this award we should be able to develop something which will test these monitors.

"This could also be used for training purposes, so rather than having to train in a real life situation, nurses and midwives can use a simulator."

Mr Nixon said the Government money would be used to enlist the help of both computer experts and others, such as Bradford University.

"At the end of the day we're hoping to make an initial prototype, but there's a lot of development work to be done," he said. "Medical equipment manufacturers are at a disadvantage because all equipment has to be specially approved and meet strict guidelines, and a lot of companies have gone out of business because of this.

"But it's nice that we're getting a little bit of help back from the Government"

The prestige attached to the Smart award will help Viamed compete in the European market.

The company has recently got involved with a consortium of Yorkshire medical companies which aims to share expertise and resources.

The Smart scheme was started in 1997 to promote innovation among small and medium sized companies, which often do not have large budgets available to them.

Jeremy Walker, county Government office director, commented: "Innovation is the key driver of competitiveness and business success."

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