Future-proofing strategy key for nurse call specialist

Three years after moving from its former outdated base into a considerably larger and more modern office and factory complex in Bournemouth, family-owned UK designer, manufacturer, and installer of wireless nurse call solutions, Courtney-Thorne, is enjoying the benefits. As HEJ’s editor, Jonathan Baillie, discovered during a recent visit, the company is increasingly focusing on making its systems future-proof – particularly through ensuring connectivity with smart and sensor based-technologies – to keep it ahead of the competition. Nowhere is this more evident than in its recently launched new ‘flagship’ system, the Altra range. 

Courtney-Thorne began life on a small scale 50 years ago in Bournemouth as a manufacturer of alarm systems for the fire, security, and nurse call sectors. Since 1990, however, it has focused specifically on wireless nurse call technology. Managing director, Graham Vickrage, told me, when I met with him, the firm’s marketing manager, Greta Lucinskiene, and commercial director, Andy Vale, at the company’s impressive new building in Bournemouth’s Elliott Road, that such is the company’s engineering expertise, strong focus on R&D, design, and innovation and – in developing Altra – its determination to ensure connectivity between the new ‘premium’ nurse call system and a growing range of ‘smart’ devices, that it can now justifiably claim to offer some of the  UK’s most advanced and ‘future-proof’ such equipment.

Before bringing things up to date with a look back at a significant last 3-4 years for the company – one of the key milestones having been late 2014’s move to a new base – Graham Vickrage explained that Courtney-Thorne was first established in 1968 by his father Paul, who began his career as an electrician, before studying electronics at night school – and remains family-owned today. He said: “My father’s early electrical work took him into care homes, where he rapidly recognised the need for wireless nurse call systems, and indeed he is still seen as one of the pioneers of such equipment. Care homes have remained a key market for us ever since.