A DUNFERMLINE firm that's developed a remote patient monitoring device which could ease the pressure on hospitals has raised £2 million.

Waire Health's new invention is worn on the upper arm and provides a blood pressure estimation and checks respiration rate, temperature, oxygen saturation, motion and heart rate.

The firm launched in 2018 and aims to use the funding to treble its workforce from 10 to 30 and scale up its sensor technology to improve remote ward monitoring and reduce hospital re-admissions.

Dave Hurhangee, chief executive and founder of Waire Health, began developing wearable technology for radiation monitoring on Royal Navy nuclear submarines based at Rosyth in the 1980s.

He said: “If you can operate a monitoring device from a submarine, that gives you a strong foundation to build for applications across multiple sectors and environments.

"We’re now branching out into sectors outside healthcare, so that will be part of our next phase of growth.”

The remote patient monitoring device, called 'C-Detect', operates in hospitals and homes autonomously, through continuous real-time monitoring and advanced artificial intelligence.

Developed at the firm’s Dunfermline head office and made at a facility near Edinburgh, it has undergone extensive trials with the University of California.

Waire Health has already built up partnerships with institutions ranging from global healthcare organisations to national governments.

And the £2m, which included investment from Eos Advisory in St Andrews and backing from Scottish Enterprise, will help them accelerate expansion in overseas markets, including North America.

Mr Hurhangee said: “The whole area of care at home got pushed over the edge during COVID.

"What many companies didn’t fully appreciate was the paramount importance of usability.

"If devices have to rely on mobile connections or Bluetooth, they become difficult to use from the outset, for both patients and healthcare providers.

"We bring design and detail from years of experience of working with the technology, and our devices fall back to cellular if wifi falls off.”

Mark Beaumont, the round-the-world cyclist and partner with Eos, is now a Waire director and said: “As healthcare systems in the UK and around the world move to remote monitoring and real-time patient data, we see a huge opportunity for Waire Health to scale its C-Detect device.

"Eos is focused on finding, backing and scaling the best science and technology in Scotland that improves quality of life, of which Waire is a brilliant example.”