Home and export demand lifts Ferno into double digit growth

Ferno (UK), which designs, develops and builds emergency patient handling and evacuation equipment, saw sales of its ambulance trolleys, evacuation chairs and stretchers increase by 13 per cent from 9.77m to 11.07m in spite of the challenging economic environment.

The company marks its 40th birthday this year and in October will welcome representatives from its family-owned US parent company to its Cleckheaton headquarters for anniversary celebrations.

Jon Ellis, managing director, said he was delighted with the company's financial performance during the year ending September 30, 2010.

He told the Yorkshire Post: "In the UK, we have done extremely well in the last 12 months with the NHS. There is still a demand for new ambulances to serve an increased demand for ambulance services. When trusts buy ambulances, they buy our equipment."

A change in Government policy has been instrumental in this demand. Health authorities had favoured increasing the number of rapid response units – estate cars with a single paramedic – but changed course two years ago in favour of getting more ambulances on the road to treat patients at accident scenes.

Another benefit has come from increased outsourcing of non-essential services by trusts, which have been through a period of consolidation in recent years.

Mr Ellis added: "A number of them have outsourced services to reduce their costs and pass them on to manufacturers. We have seen significant growth in after-sales services for our products."

He said: "It's a benefit to the NHS trusts, which are taxpayer funded, because they can reduce their costs and concentrate on their core business, which is picking up patients, treating them and getting them to hospital on time to meet their targets."

The company has also seen increasing demand for its specialist equipment to transport obese patients, a growing health problem in the UK, the United States, Europe and Scandinavia.

Mr Ellis said: "We are dealing with 50-stone patients in certain areas around the UK. We have seen a big increase in that market. We have the products they need to move these patients. We have a unique niche.

"Bariatric sales doubled last year as the NHS trust invested in new equipment to meet the extreme needs they now face in transporting and treating obese patients."

Ferno has gained a competitive advantage over domestic and international rivals by working with UK ambulance manufacturers to design vehicles with its innovative lifting products in mind, which in turn has helped the company expand into Europe and break into the German, Dutch and Scandinavian markets.

Ferno's technology, developed in Yorkshire, allows paramedics to lift patients into ambulances with no physical exertion. A by-product of this has been a fall in injury claims by NHS staff, said Mr Ellis.

He said: "It has changed the ambulance market in the UK on a national basis. The European market has looked at how we do things in the UK and it is taking the same model for transporting patients on trolleys and in vehicles into Europe." Exports increased by more than 100 per cent to 1.16m last year.

Ferno has also benefited from increased demand resulting from new laws on disability discrimination and fire regulations, which have forced industrial landlords and tenants to buy evacuation products.

Mr Ellis declined to reveal profit figures for the year, but said the company reinvests its profits in future development.

The business was founded as FW Equipment by Yorkshire businessman Les Harris in 1971. Ferno-Washington Inc, owned by the Bourgraf family of Ohio, bought it in 1989 and renamed it as Ferno (UK) in 1992. In 1998, the company bought its number two competitor from Huntleigh.

Today, it has 80 employees, with 65 based on site and 15 in the field in sales and service roles. It designs, develops and manufactures its products in Cleckheaton, where it has computer-aided design and testing facilities, plus market research and marketing functions.

In contrast to the experience of some regional companies, Mr Ellis said West Yorkshire is a good catchment area for a skilled workers and new employees are put through a full training programme.

He plans to grow turnover by organic means to 15m by 2013 and will consider acquisitions "that could enhance that figure even further".

No turnover figures are available for the privately-held

parent group, which is based in Wilmington and has operations across the world.

Frontline will be spared cuts

While uncertainty remains over how NHS ambulance trusts will be affected by spending cuts, demand will continue for emergency services, says the managing director of Ferno (UK).

Jon Ellis, 42, said he expected more clarity from Government announcements in April. But he added: "I can't see them changing anything on numbers of frontline paramedics and numbers of ambulances because there is still a big demand for emergency services to respond to patient needs.

"The Government is changing the way it monitors performance targets because they cannot meet response times. I think that works in our favour. They are going to need equipment and vehicles."