Business Breakfast: Care equipment firm to move away from Harrogate

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Entries close on January 19, 2024.

The owners of a Harrogate-based care equipment specialist have announced plans to move its offices away from the town.

Vivid Care said its decision to move away from Linkside House on Forest Lane Head to new premises at Thorp Arch, near Wetherby, is part of a strategic change of direction for the family-run business.

Vivid Care supplies specialist seating, care beds, falls response devices and mobility equipment, and is part of the CoreCare Group. It will be moving its Harrogate showroom to an appointment-only showroom at Thorp Arch at the end of the year. Vivid Care’s employees will join colleagues at the new site from CoreCare Group sister companies, including Innova Care Concepts, Dependall Logistics, and Aquadapt Home Installations.

The current retail showroom in Harrogate will close on December 21, and the new appointment-only showroom will open at Rofta House, Thorp Arch on January 2, with retail sales continuing online.

Formerly Yorkshire Care Equipment, Vivid Care has 50 years of experience in supporting the NHS and care organisations to provide independence and enhance the lives of those with care needs. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the team worked closely with colleagues at sister company Innova Care Concepts to help the NHS with the setup of the Nightingale Hospitals.

Managing director Tristan Hulbert said:

“It’s the right time to enact the next stage of our strategic plan to move our offices to be in our group headquarters in Wetherby.

“As part of this move, the head office building is undergoing new investments with a refurbished office, new video conferencing facilities, a redesigned canteen, and a new state-of-the-art showroom.

“It will allow us to continue our growth in supporting our NHS, reduce our carbon footprint, and promote further collaboration across the CoreCare Group as a whole.

“We’d like to thank all our loyal Harrogate customers for their custom over the past 27 years, and look forward to welcoming them by prebooked appointment to our new space in Wetherby in the new year.”

Phone-to-walkie-talkie firm announces deal

Mobile Tornado, the Harrogate business whose push-to-talk over cellular (PTToC) technology can turn mobile phones into walkie-talkies, has announced a reseller agreement with Hampshire-based Foresolutions.

Foresolutions provides integrated technologies for workforces in the aviation, construction and infrastructure sectors.

Nathan Williams, managing director of Foresolutions, said: 

“We like Mobile Tornado’s technology because it is easy to use, has exceptionally low latency and is feature rich. It has superb options for lone workers and emergency situations. It fits perfectly with our ethos of offering our customers a ‘single plane of glass’ that has multiple applications.

“We are seeing more and more organisations adopt push-to-talk over cellular for critical communications as mobile networks become stronger and stronger. More than eight out of 10 premises in the UK are now able to access 5G. We are also seeing increasing take-up in aviation – the main ground-handling crew at one of Europe’s busiest airports has been using PTToC for the last year.”

Foresolutions was founded in 1979 and is a family-owned business with clients across the UK.

Andrew McNamara, channel sales manager at Mobile Tornado, said:

“We are excited to be joining forces with Foresolutions, a long-established provider with a blue-chip customer base. We are looking forward to working together to help more UK organisations increase safety, reduce costs, boost productivity and improve efficiency among their workforces.

“We totally support Foresolutions’ ‘single pane of glass’ ethos. Today’s users have expectations about what a single device should be able to do and don’t want to be saddled with lots of different devices for different applications in challenging operating environments.”

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Business Breakfast: Masham brewery partners with donor milk charity

It’s time to join the Stray Ferret Business Club. The fourth in our series of networking events, with Banyan Bar & Kitchen, is a breakfast event on April 27 from 8am.

Don’t miss out on this chance to network with businesses from across the Harrogate district. Get your tickets by clicking or tapping here.

Masham-based Black Sheep Brewery has partnered with a baby charity to help support the donation of milk to sick and premature babies.

The brewery is supporting the Human Milk Foundation with a fundraising campaign for the second year running.

The charity provides donor human milk to over 40 NHS hospitals and thousands of families across England and Wales.

Black Sheep will help to raise awareness of the issue by placing a ‘peel and read’ label on its Milk Stout drink in supermarkets, which will direct people to the HMF site with instructions on how to donate.

Charlene Lyons, chief executive of Black Sheep Brewery, said: 

“We’re delighted to once again partner with the incredible people at Human Milk Foundation to launch this fundraising campaign.

“We consider the blood bikers to be real heroes; when they receive the call, they do whatever it takes, day or night, to pick up the donation from the nearest milk bank and quickly but safely transport the milk to the necessary hospital or family in need.”

Natalie Shenker, co-founder and director of the HMF, added: 

“We are delighted to again partner with Black Sheep brewery as we aim to raise further funds to save the lives of sick and premature babies, as well as supporting the ‘blood bikers’ in their incredible efforts.

“The support of Black Sheep has allowed for the expansion of our milk bank operations so we can make safe, screened donor milk available via the blood bikers for hospitals and families across England and Wales.”

Harrogate MP visits local health business

Andrew Jones MP visited a Harrogate business supporting NHS hospitals with patient discharges.

Vivid.Care, which is based at Forest Lane Head, sells rehabilitation and recovery equipment across the UK.

Andrew Jones MP visits Vivid.Care.

Andrew Jones MP visits Vivid.Care.

The Harrogate and Knaresborough MP visited the firm this past Friday and was shown products which were being given to the NHS.

Tristan Hulbert, managing director of the company, said:

“We wanted to demonstrate just how Vivid.Care products and healthcare solutions help to enable timely patient discharge from hospitals and reduce system costs where possible.” 

Mr Hulbert added:

“We showcased some of our innovative healthcare solutions such as the Raizer lifting chair and our Lento specialist seating range which are being used by healthcare providers across the UK to reduce delays to patient discharge and existing backlogs.”

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