A HAMPSHIRE inventor has dreamt up a clever device to make life easier for thousands of pensioners on medication.

Called the PillPress, the invention allows the elderly or frail to remove pills and tablets from their foil blister packaging.

It could make life much easier for the 19 per cent of the UK population suffering from arthritis or weakness in their hands that makes opening pill packets a struggle.

Boots, Superdrug and the Royal National Institute for the Blind are all considering selling PillPress.

It's the brainwave of Brian Stickley, 34, from Romsey, who worked with experts at Southampton Institute to turn his idea into reality.

The key feature of the PillPress is an enclosed pit that traps the pill after it is popped out, allowing the user to tip it safely into their palm.

Brian, who has also developed talking labels to help blind people identify every-day items, said he stumbled across the problem and then came up with a solution.

"We did market research for the talking labels for pill packets and found that there was an additional problem of getting the pills out. People often flipped them on to the floor and people would lose them or the dog would eat them.

"We found arthritis sufferers had no strength in their fingers, which are bent and buckled so they found it physically impossible. One woman who had to take pills at night had to wake up her husband to do it for her."

PillPress is also a boon for stroke victims paralysed down one side.

Brian thinks there's a huge market for his device.

"I think realistically there's a potential ten or 11 million people who could use this and we could easily sell a couple of hundred thousand by the end of the year and longer term a million sounds nice."

He also hopes to take advantage of an increasing trend to use blister foil packaging right across Europe and Australia.

Closer to home, PillPress is already going down a bomb. Lesley Page of the Hampshire Association for the Care of the Blind is already selling them to members.

"I've had quite a few orders. Members think it's very good and easy to use. I'm impressed." Priced £3.95, PillPress is also available on the Internet at www.PillPress.co.uk