The business is focussed at serving the Medical and Hospital Markets with various types of sterilisation packaging and infection control products. The product ranges we offer support three specific areas of this market.
Hospital Sterilisation Packaging and Related Products
These products are manufactured in the form of pouches, self-seal pouches and reels available in a wide range of sizes. This range is further complimented with sterilisation indicator products, sterilisation validation equipment (Calivac) and a CSSD traceability system (Sterigest).
OEM Packaging
OEM medical packaging is manufactured to suit the different demands of worldwide device manufacturers.
Infection Control Products
The SHARPAK range of sharps containers and DISPOSApak clinical waste containers have been designed to meet the needs of infection control staff throughout the world.
We were one of the first companies to manufacture a range of sharps containers approved to the British Standard BS 7320:1990 and the SHARPAK range has grown in size and popularity ever since. We were also the first company to take the initiative and offer our customers services such as on-site training, hospital department sharps audits and sharps awareness posters – services which are offered free of charge.
The last major change in the regulations, relating to clinical waste containers, came into effect on the 1st January 1997 when it became a legal requirement to have sharps and clinical waste containers UN type approved in order to comply to the Carriage of Dangerous Goods Regulations.
Sharps and clinical waste containers are classified as ‘packaging’ and as such they must be type tested and approved, classified under UN 3291 in accordance with CDGCPL2 meeting the Approval Requirements for the packaging and transportation of used sharps and general clinical waste contaminated with unspecified infectious substances.
Amcor/SPS were successful in obtaining UN type approval of all the SHARPAK and DISPOSApak products and since that time we have continued to develop the range.
Sharpak Plus
As part of our ongoing commitment to the infection control sector of our business the decision was taken to develop a new range of sharps containers called SHARPAK PLUS. A detailed market study was conducted to ensure that all the features we intended to incorporate would meet the needs of all healthcare professional who use our products on a daily basis. The result of this survey brought about a £2 million investment programme and the resulting introduction of the SHARPAK PLUS range of containers. This new range would incorporate all of the design improvements which we and our customers had evolved over the previous 20 years serving this market.
The range consists of 4 main sizes of sharps container – 6, 12 and 22 litre capacities and the new 3.5 litre (Sharpak 35) which has been added to the range in 2006. We have incorporated additional features such as more user friendly assembly, a simple closure design with a fool-proof final lock and an integrated mounting point, which, by using a purpose designed accessory pack, allows the containers to be either wall or trolley mounted for safe use. The Sharpak Plus range of sharps containers are BS approved.
Label sizes were also increased in size to allow the identification record section to be a more usable size, and each label is printed with a sequential number which can be used to aid traceability.
SHARPAK PLUS continues to be complimented by other special application containers in the range which includes SHARPAK COMPACT, SHARPAK 18, SHARPAK XL and our SHARPAK HYDRI range which was introduced to deal with sharps which may be contaminated with cytotoxic drugs.
The future
It is the intention of Amcor/SPS to continue to offer healthcare customers the best quality products by utilizing the latest technology whilst always taking the ever-increasing pressures on healthcare spending into consideration.
Recent developments include the introduction of the VisiLOCK system initially on to the SHARPAK 18 and SHARPAK 60 PLUS sharps containers.
