Firms join forces to aid NHS

Headed up by two brothers, Yorkshire Care Equipment in Harrogate and Innova Care Concepts in Wetherby have invested in a new 30,000 sq ft warehouse facility, increased their production and stock levels, and reorganised their teams to deliver rapid quote and delivery times for urgent equipment requests.

Innova will handle orders from NHS Trusts for hospitals – including temporary ‘Nightingale’ facilities.

And Yorkshire Care will process all requests from community and social care providers, including local authorities, equipment loan stores and residential care homes.

Tom Hulbert, Managing Director at Innova, said: “It’s important to come together.”

He added: “For us, it became clear that we could help more people faster by working together as a family and business.

“We were able to supply 300 drip stands to the field hospital set up at ExCeL London in under 48 hours. That was made only possible by sharing everyone’s knowledge and skills to figure out the logistics.”

The companies have stocks of hospital and community beds, mattresses, stretchers, seating, IV poles, furniture and other care equipment ready for urgent delivery nationwide.

Tristan Hulbert, Managing Director at Yorkshire Care, said: “We’ve joked in the past about having a little friendly competition between us, but it really is incredible what we’ve achieved together in the last few weeks.

By using each other’s contacts we’ve been able to work out where the needs are across national health and social care services far more efficiently. From there, we can source the right equipment and get it in the right place at the right time.”

By addressing both hospital procurement and the need for community care equipment to facilitate at-home care after discharge, the companies hope to support the NHS’ plans to increase hospital capacity whilst freeing up existing beds as quickly as possible.