It’s time to join the Stray Ferret Business Club!

The second in our series of networking events in association with The Coach and Horses in Harrogate is an After Work Drinks event on February 23 from 5.30pm. Don’t miss out on this chance to network with businesses from across the Harrogate district, get your tickets now by clicking or tapping here.

Harrogate-based digital health company, Inhealthcare, has created 20 jobs which will help the NHS and private sector with patient monitoring services.

Inhealthcare supports more than 50 NHS trusts in England and provides services to five health and social care trusts in Northern Ireland.

Services provided by Inhealthcare, which is based at Cardale Park, include the management of ‘virtual wards’. Patients get to remain at home whilst they or a carer monitor vital signs and input data on an app, SMS, automated phone call or online portal.

The 20 jobs at the company include app developer roles, automation testers, technical authors and product specialists, as well as account managers, deployment and training managers, and training and support executives.

This takes the number of employees to 44.

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Harrogate car dealership wins award for customer satisfaction

 Harrogate care dealership, Stratstone MINI has received Reputation’s 800 award for high customer-satisfaction.

The dealership, which is on Wetherby Road, is one of seven Stratstone garages to win this award in 2023.

Reputation, which gives out the award, assess the customer-satisfaction of companies in various industries, including the automotive industry, finance, healthcare, home services, hospitality and real estate.

Businesses are scored, and those that are honoured with the 800 award will have achieved a score above that number.

Kim Costello, chief customer officer at Stratstone, said:

“This recognition is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our associates in North Yorkshire.

“Across Stratstone, our aim is to be the gold-standard for customer-centric business, putting our customers at the heart of everything we do. We look forward to earning this award year after year.”​​​​​​

One of the UK’s fastest-growing restaurant operators will be opening in Ripon and bringing 25 new jobs to the city.

Loungers UK, which owns the Lounge and Cosy Club brands, is currently refurbishing a building in Market Place, next to Ripon Town Hall, and the opening of the premises will add to the Bristol-based company’s portfolio of approximately 150 sites in England and Wales.

Gemma Irwin, community manager for The Lounges, told the Stray Ferret:

“We will recruit around 25 local people and hope to quickly become part of Ripon’s community.”

With refurbishment work currently under way to transform the former NatWest bank premises, an opening date is yet to be confirmed.

The premises acquired by the Loungers Group, is in a prime location next to Ripon Town Hall

The Ripon opening is part of a growth strategy announced by the company last year, in which it said it is:

“Targeting 25 new site openings per annum over the medium term, of which approximately 20 are expected to be Lounges and approximately five are expected to be Cosy Clubs.”

Read more:

• See how a Ripon entrepreneur’s dreams are coming true
• How did diversification help a Ripon pie maker?

The company, founded in 2002, was valued at £185 million before its listing on the London Stock Exchange Alternative Investment Market (AIM) which lists smaller growing businesses.

With the hospitality sector hit hard by the coronavirus lockdown in March, which saw all of its restaurants temporarily closed, Loungers secured a £15million revolving credit facility from its banks for an 18-month period, designed to assist the company during the covid 19 disruption and help it if the pandemic impacts sales into next year.

Loungers was founded by friends Dave Reid, Alex Reilley and Jake Bishop, who wanted to create a neighbourhood café-bar that they would want to go into themselves.

The trio, all of whom had previous experience of working in the restaurant and bar trade, opened their first venture in Bristol in premises formerly occupied by an opticians.

Over the past 18 years, the Loungers Group has become an all-day operator of scale in the UK and has outperformed the wider UK hospitality sector over the past three years in terms of growth.