A BIOSENSOR, which will allow medics to rapidly analyse the blood of overdose victims, could soon be developed thanks to funding from the Swindon-based Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

Every day accident and emergency units have to treat patients who have taken some sort of drug overdose.

To give treatment doctors need to know what the patient has taken and the faster they can do it the better.

Swindon's EPSRC, which funds research and postgraduate training in universities, has given £53,000 to help the development of a biosensor, which can determine in minutes if a patient's blood contains a particular compound, for example paracetamol.

Currently this type of examination needs to be carried out in a laboratory, which is expensive and time consuming.

The research is being carried out by Dr Sub Reddy's team at the University of Surrey.

"The sensor system can return a response in less than 10 minutes compared to two to three hours required by a laboratory, depending on their workload," said Dr Reddy.

"Ideally, the overdose sensor may be located in the ambulance so that a result is available when the patient arrives at hospital."

The paracetamol sensor is the pilot to the development of an array of overdose sensors.