Specialist in medical lighting, Brandon Medical, infection prevention product manufacturer, Vernacare, and auctioneer, Hilditch, were among healthcare sector companies to recently be recognised with 2011 Queen’s Awards for Enterprise.
Brandon Medical says it was assessed for its “Innovation” category award, for the “invention, design, and production” of its “worldclass” medical technology, including its HD-LED lighting, which “eliminates the traditional blue tint present in ordinary LED lights, and allows the accurate representation of natural daylight, enabling visible colours to be vivid and vibrant”. Surgeons can thus “easily distinguish the most minuscule differences in tissues”. Its portfolio includes medical lighting, medical AV systems, medical architectural systems, and medical control and power. Also an “Innovation” category winner was Vernacare, for its “unique detergent-proof, disposable wash bowl” (pictured), developed with NHS clinicians’ help, “to avoid the infection risk of re- using traditional plastic bowls”. Said to be the world’s first single-use pulp wash bowl, and able to hold both warm water and detergent, it is reportedly used by more than a third of NHS hospitals. Malmesbury-based auctioneer, Hilditch, meanwhile, won its 2011 Queen’s Award in the International Trade category. Established in 1990, the company has established “a unique service” which “finds markets for surplus medical equipment which might otherwise be scrapped”. Export earnings have more than doubled in the past three years, from buyers in over 40 countries, through the auction, recycling, and disposal, of all types of surplus equipment, “mainly of a medical nature, but also industrial, catering, and hospitality equipment”.
