Steve Purdy is a Medtech innovator who founded Heads-Up Medical Solutions Ltd with the innovation Neuroguard. Alongside his day job as a frontline paramedic, Steve used evenings, weekends and annual leave to develop Neuroguard and secure funding.

Born from years of attending trauma cases, Neuroguard is designed to improve brain injury care in pre-hospital settings. The device enables correct head elevation while maintaining full spinal immobilisation, helping to reduce secondary brain injury and other complications.

Neuroguard was one of three winners as part of our Pitch Your Product: Medtech opportunity which offered a tailored package of support from expert partners.

1. Introduce yourself, what’s your background, what is your innovation, and who does it help?

 I’m Steve Purdy, a frontline paramedic and now founder of Heads-Up Medical Solutions Ltd. My innovation, Neuroguard™, is a simple, reusable, and non-invasive device designed to raise the head of a trauma patient while maintaining spinal immobilisation. It’s designed for use in ambulances, emergency departments, and pre-hospital environments to help reduce secondary brain injury in patients with suspected traumatic brain injury (TBI). Ultimately, it helps first responders and clinicians provide safer, faster, and more effective care when every second counts.

2. How did you fit in developing your innovation with any day jobs or into your lifestyle?

 Like many clinician innovators, Neuroguard began as an idea scribbled on paper between shifts. I balanced development (sometimes) alongside a full-time job, using evenings, weekends, and annual leave to build partnerships, write funding applications, and develop prototypes. It’s been about persistence, organisation, and a lot of caffeine finding small windows of time to push the idea forward even on the busiest days.

3. How did you get the idea? What inspired you to develop your innovation

 A Lightbulb moment in the front cab of the truck on a night shift, post job where we sat saying there must be a better way. The idea came from the countless trauma cases I attended as a paramedic. I saw first-hand how patients with suspected TBI were laid flat due to spinal precautions, even though we know head elevation helps reduce intracranial pressure. Crews often improvised with makeshift padding, which was unsafe and ineffective. I wanted to create a safe, repeatable, and clinically aligned solution that’s where Neuroguard was born.

4. What challenge does your innovation address?

Neuroguard addresses a critical gap in pre-hospital care: balancing the need for spinal immobilisation with the neuroprotective benefit of head elevation. Currently, there’s no approved or standardised method to elevate the head of a trauma patient safely. By bridging that gap, Neuroguard could help reduce mortality and long-term disability from secondary brain injury, the leading cause of death and disability in patients under 40.

5. What have you learnt on your journey so far, developing your product?

I’ve learnt that innovation isn’t a straight line. It’s a journey of resilience, collaboration, and constant learning. I’ve discovered how complex medical device development is, from clinical evidence to regulatory compliance and manufacturing, but I’ve also seen how supportive the MedTech ecosystem can be when you reach out and share your vision. Every day is a school day!

6. What are your hopes for the future?

My hope is that Neuroguard becomes standard practice in pre-hospital trauma care, used in every ambulance and emergency department across the UK and eventually globally. More broadly, I hope to inspire other clinicians to take their frontline insights and turn them into innovations that can change lives.

7. What are the plans/next steps for this innovation?

The next stage is to try and secure funding to finalise the prototype development, usability testing, and early clinical evaluation. Alongside this, we’re building partnerships with manufacturers, ambulance and NHS trusts to ensure we move towards regulatory approval and commercial readiness hopefully within the next 2–3 years.

8. What would be the number one thing you suggest a budding MedTech innovator should do if they don’t know where to start?

Start with the problem, not the product. Talk to the people who experience that problem everyday patients and clinicians and build from there. Then reach out to Innovation Hubs or NIHR MedTech Research Centres; they exist to help you find your footing and connect you with the right people.

9. Anything else you would like to share?

Innovation doesn’t need to be complex sometimes, the most impactful ideas are the simplest, and you don’t have to be an engineer to make a difference, just someone who refuses to accept “that’s just how we do it.