Some medical devices begin in a lab. DoubleCHEK began with a photograph — a newborn with a feeding tube taped to his face.

That baby was our founder, George Gallagher. He was born with his oesophagus and trachea fused together, a tracheo-oesophageal fistula. After surgery at Alder Hey, it was six weeks before his mother could hold him for the first time. What kept him alive in between was nutrition delivered through a nasogastric feeding tube.

Years later, as an engineer, George kept returning to one question: how do we really know that tube is in the right place?

Getting an NG tube into the stomach — and not the lungs — sounds simple. It isn’t always. And the checks clinicians rely on don’t always catch a misplacement in time.

That question is why Enteral Access Technologies exists, and why we built DoubleCHEK.

Over the coming weeks we’ll share what the evidence says about NG tube safety — the risks, the costs, and what we can do better — for clinicians in the UK, Europe and the US. We’d love nurses, dietitians, and nutrition teams to join the conversation.

Because every patient with a feeding tube is someone’s lucky one.