'Like an actor in their first year winning an Oscar': How Yorkshire medical products firm beat corporate giants to top tech award

So co-founders Gareth Rimmington and Alex Higgins were both surprised and delighted when their firm, which specialises in supplying vital medical products to people with urology, stoma and wound care needs, beat both corporations earlier this year to claim a prize at the National Technology Awards.

The company, which has its main office in Leeds and a delivery hub in Bradford, won the Customer Experience Tech of the Year category at the awards. Gareth says: “It was like an actor in their first year winning the Oscars – that is how much it meant to us as an achievement.”

The company was recognised for its Vyne Online app, which backs up its home delivery service for the medical products it provides to NHS patients.

Gareth explains: “I feel we are transforming the way the NHS manages accessing medical devices on behalf of the patient.

“Where a task of putting a patient onto a home delivery service could take up to 15 minutes over the phone, we’ve got that down to just over a minute through ordering on the app. You times that by the number of patients who are leaving the hospital each day on medical devices; it soon adds up to a significant saving for one trust. Then you times that by all the trusts in the UK; it is a lot of hours, weeks and years of time that can go to the patient rather than on administration.

“We have got quite a lot of traction within pockets of the NHS that have really adopted the digital way of working. You can also see in the app, a bit like a Domino’s pizza delivery, what’s happening within the process and you know it is with the driver.

“For the customer it is fantastic because there is a lot of anxiety in terms of understanding if their medical devices are going to arrive. It really gives that comfort and reduces anxiety because without these products clients may not be able to go to the toilet. The importance of what we do is huge for the customer and the nurses.”

Gareth and Alex started the firm back in late 2008. The pair became friends when both attending Leeds Metropolitan University (now Leeds Beckett) and originally went into business together in the buy-to-let market which Gareth smilingly says “really failed miserably”.

Alex went into working in the retail industry and Gareth moved into healthcare and after several years they decided to try again with their dream of owning a business together.

The firm mainly sells to the NHS but also works in international markets through different distributors. Alex says the NHS’s frequent organisational restructures can be helpful as well as challenging to their business.

“Having been in the industry for 15 to 16 years you realise it can be frustrating and can change but it can present opportunities as well,” he reflects. “If you have got a bit of a solution-focused mindset there can be opportunities in there if you are prepared to change and prepared to move.”

Gareth says the growth of the business has been gradual.

“We were always keen to build something for the long-term. It was never about extracting cash from the business, it was very much about keeping as much money as we could to reinvest from year to year. That was probably one of the things we did well in the early days. That enabled us to bring in more sales people and marketing. We’ve never borrowed any money but have always kept money in the business to reinvest and grow. Most years we have grown at maybe 10 to 15 per cent."

Alex says the continued growth of the business, which now has 103 employees, has been a company-wide effort.

“It is kind of more about them than it is us. We have evolved and grown but there has always been a desire to improve what is out there – ‘constantly creating better’ is the mantra we have and is emblazoned on the wall. It is really about how can we improve the experience for the healthcare professional and the patient.”

Its home delivery service involves its own electric van delivery drivers around the Leeds areas and external couriers nationally who still make use of the app. Optimum managed to achieve carbon neutrality back in 2023 after appointing a sustainability manager to reach the aim and has solar panels on its Bradford site to help charge up its delivery vans. Alex says that is an example of how the Optimum team make a collective difference.

"It is their passion that makes it work because two people can’t do what we are doing. It needs a huge team to believe they want to leave the planet in a better place than when they arrived. We are quite unique as a medical business in terms of not just looking to bring people from industry. Everybody can bring a lot to the table; it isn’t just mine and Gareth’s ideas. Sometimes the medical industry can be a little bit stale and just do the same thing on a regular basis. It is quite welcome to get an injection of new ideas from other industries.”

Gareth says of their hiring process: “We want empathy because at the end of the day what matters is improving patient outcomes and lives. Patients have often been through the hardest time of their life with certain operations and various procedures. The NHS is so busy now and it doesn’t always have the time to explain what has happened to patients and explain what products they may be using.”

Gareth adds a customer who’d undergone a bowel cancer operation and required a catheter and a stoma bag came in to speak to staff about the difference they’d made.

“Before being diagnosed he would motorcycle around Europe. He said I didn’t think I would be able to get back to some of the things I did. But he said it is through companies like ours that I could get to a new normal. He was off a couple of years later riding his motorbike around Europe once more. Those sorts of stories are really what drives us.”