Wireless world widens nurse call options

HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie, spoke to specialist in wireless nurse call systems, Courtney-Thorne, to discuss some of its key recent product innovations, and see what impact it feels developments such as ‘cloud’ technology will have on the bringing of more technology into the nurse call sector as ‘nurse and carer tools’.

Established in 1968 by Paul Vickrage, the father of current managing director, Graham, as a family-run business designing and manufacturing alarm systems for the fire, security, and nurse call industries, Courtney-Thorne is today firmly established as a leading manufacturer of high quality, bespoke, wireless nurse call systems. Up until Christmas last year the company’s 30 staff were based at an industrial unit on Bournemouth’s Drewitt Industrial Estate, which, Graham Vickrage and Courtney- Thorne’s national sales manager, John Polhill, acknowledged, when I met them there, was no longer either spacious or modern enough to properly serve the business’s needs. In fact as we met, the company was finalising preparations to re-locate to a new 6,700 ft2 premises about double the size, just half a mile away. The new two-storey building, which the firm took over before Christmas, will provide a more comfortable and conducive working environment for personnel including the company’s internal and external sales teams, a five-strong R&D department, the management team, and other administrative staff, and will also have a larger technical facility and warehousing area. While R&D and product development is undertaken in-house, the majority of the assembly and manufacture of Courtney-Thorne’s increasingly sophisticated nurse call systems is carried out locally by external sub-contractors.

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