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Who would argue with a pain-free injection? Nobody loves the thought of a needle piercing their skin, least of all doctors and dentists who have to deal with stressed and anxious patients. Scientists have been working on this problem for a while, but a young British inventor based in Somerset may have come up with the solution. Oliver Blackwell's device looks like the typical cannulas used in hospitals and doctors' surgeries around the country, with one crucial difference. On the front is a much smaller needle which injects a tiny amount of local anaesthetic to ease the pain of the larger needle which follows. It is essentially two injections in one - the first one, virtually pain-free, paving the way for the second one, which is rendered painless. The first injection is "like a fly landing on your palm", the inventor says. Blackwell, who is 29 and graduated in industrial design from the University of Plymouth, UK, in 2005, says his pain-free needle could be used in millions of procedures every year and reduce the risk of contamination or confusion because staff will only have to deal with one device. On the front of the cannula is a small needle which administers around 0.2ml of local anaesthetic "At the moment, if they want to use a local anaesthetic they have to use two needles, find keys and go to the medicine cupboard separately and it all takes time and effort," he says.