Needle safety assembly

A method of shielding a non-patient end of a needle in a safety needle assembly for use with a medical injector, the safety needle assembly comprising;

• a tubular housing removably attachable to the medical injector, the tubular housing extending in a longitudinal direction from a proximal end to a distal end, the proximal end being arranged for attachment to the medical injector;
• a needle mount located within the tubular housing for directly or indirectly supporting a double ended needle having a patient end and a non-patient end, the needle mount being arranged to allow movement of the needle from an operative position to a shielding position;
• a spring member to urge movement of the needle to the shielding position;
• and
• a releasable blocking member arranged to prevent movement of the needle from the operative position whereat the needle extends in a direction along a longitudinal axis of the tubular housing and whereby release of the blocking member allows movement of the needle to the shielding position;
• characterised in that;
• the needle mount is a unitary component inserted into the tubular housing and fixedly retained in a pivoting position so as to rotate around an axis intersecting the longitudinal axis of the tubular housing and the spring member is arranged to urge rotation of the needle about said axis;
• and the method comprises
• slidably displacing a control member of the blocking member along the longitudinal axis of the tubular housing from a set position whereat the control member engages the needle mount to maintain the needle in an operative position before use
• attaching the safety needle assembly to the medical injector,
• subsequently detaching the safety needle assembly from the medical injector,
• which causes the control member to move away from the set position and disengage from the needle mount and allow the spring member to rotate the needle to the shielding position and to move the non-patient end of the needle towards the distal end of the tubular housing whereat the needle extends at an angle oblique to the longitudinal axis of the tubular housing to place the non-patient end of the needle at a location adjacent to an interior wall of the tubular housing.