“In some situations, the equipment had been bought and paid for but could not be used or was defective.”
The vital role a Dundee company played in sourcing critical PPE equipment at the height of Covid-19 for Scottish hospitals has been revealed.
Dundee-based Hutchison Technologies is now looking to expand its international operations after successfully supporting NHS Scotland with PPE and virus testing equipment in the fight against coronavirus.
The city firm has diverse operations in telecoms, audio visual, smart energy and medical sectors.
Hutchison’s international customer base includes a number of large UK energy retailers, leisure and retail chains as well as medical and pharmaceutical companies.
Hutchison Technologies was already supplying medical quality approved and accredited supplies to household medical and pharma names like Johnson & Johnson and Eli Lilly from its office in China, supported by a worldwide network of partners.
When Scottish Enterprise put out a call for help, the company looked inward to see how it could support the fight against Covid-19.
Hutchison Technologies put together a commercial proposition ensuring NHS Scotland could purchase medical quality approved and accredited supplies with zero risk.
Chief executive Bruce Hutchison recalled: “Our business philosophy is to solve business challenges through agility and customer focused innovation.
“We learned about some negative, and costly, issues procurement teams for the NHS had experienced when buying PPE and testing equipment from overseas.
“In some situations, the equipment had been bought and paid for but could not be used or was defective.
“That is a quality issue but also a health concern.
“My team on the ground in China is able to inspect the products to validate the quality and negotiate the most competitive price.
“We must have inspected over 100 factories before settling on one or two.
“We managed the risk, including sourcing medical quality equipment, handling the foreign currency, and overseeing supply chain and logistics. NHS Scotland would only pay once they’d examined and approved the equipment we supplied.”
A team at Royal Bank of Scotland arranged financing for Hutchison Technologies and supported with foreign currency exposure.
Hutchison Technologies is confident it will continue to supply medical grade equipment to NHS Scotland in the future.
Mr Hutchison added: “This has really opened our eyes to our potential and given us the confidence to develop our medical and pharma operations further.
“We will invest and look to grow the business more aggressively with confidence that we can supply these services beyond the current crisis.”
rmclaren@thecourier.co.uk