Monday Interview: Thomas Owens, MD of Essential Healthcare Solutions
The boss of a West Yorkshire-based health products company said its ambitious, rapid growth over the last three years is only set to accelerate further.
Thomas Owens joined Essential Healthcare Solutions in 2012 when it was a small franchising operation, employing six people and selling to small nursing home businesses. At the time it had no contracts with the NHS.
Now the business develops products with selected manufacturers under its own brand, employs 55 people and boasts 66 NHS contracts. It specialises in pressure care surfaces, bed and patient hoists, servicing and repair of equipment, rental solutions, as well as cleaning and decontamination.
The company turned over £3.3m last year and it forecasts turnover for this year of £5.1m.
Owens previously spent 17 years working for his father’s business – Park House Health Care – working his way up to become operations director. His father sold Park House Health Care in 2012 and Owens embarked upon his mission to begin turning Essential Healthcare Solutions into a much larger enterprise.
It now operates from 34,000 sq ft of offices and warehouses just outside Birstall. Owens says he is currently working on developing a truly national infrastructure for the business.
“We’re self-funded, have no debt and have a network of service centres,” he added. “We’ve gone from zero to 66 NHS contracts in three years, and we should really start to accelerate even more over the coming years. We should see the business grow 52 per cent this year by taking on more opportunities for contracted revenue.
“We already have our ‘super centre’ near Birstall and we want to develop two more – one in Scotland one in the London area. We’re three years into our 10-year plan, and in those 10 years I want to grow us into being a £10m turnover business.”
Owens said he was proud of how Essential Healthcare Solutions has managed to successfully compete against much bigger companies.
“There are just three or four big players in this marketplace which are all massive multi-nationals, whereas we’re a private, UK owned and managed company,” he said.
“But the 55 people we employ have a combined 600 years of experience specific to our marketplace, and what we provide is as good as, if not better than what the big players offer. We’re a premium brand, even though we’re relatively small at the moment.
“Its been tough going up against these bigger operators. To achieve that you need to have everything in place and we’ve put a lot of investment into research papers and product development. There’s been so much activity behind the scenes.”
Owens was named a finalist in the entrepreneur category at the 2019 Yorkshire Post Excellence in Business Awards, which also saw his business shortlisted for the innovation award.
And this year his firm has been shortlisted for the Innovation category of the TheBusinessDesk.com’s Yorkshire Business Masters awards.
