Excerpt from oral history with bio-engineer David Gow (DG), interviewed for Lothian Health Services Archive by Carmen Hesketh (CH). Transcription:

CH: “But in your opinion, what’s the main differences between working in the bio-engineering industry in a private company and working in the bio-engineering industry as part of the NHS?”

DG: “I think one major difference we found would be that you get anything done that you want in bio-engineering if you’ve got money to pay for it. There’s contractors all over the place that are willing to…they’ll machine a worm and wheel for you, you’ll get someone that’ll make a plaster cast for you – everybody is out there with little prototype departments that are little seed companies. And parts of the benefits of it are that people that know it are the people in certain of the Scottish Enterprise jobs, they have seeded little companies to do it. You don’t…no, I always thought of it as, “We’ve got to get a screw turned down”, “Well, go to Ted. Twenty quid (£20), he’ll do it for you. You know, it sounds obvious, but I didn’t realise that there were companies like that. And it works very well for you, of course, but obviously the companies are not always in Edinburgh, and that can be a problem, and you need to know about them, first of all.”