A Growing Portfolio…18 months on

The last 18 months have seen rapid development in our product portfolio. We have set out to create supporting product ranges, that work in perfect synergy with our core business, the manufacturing of high-quality reusable surgical instruments and the repair and service of these products. This includes third party repair of all other instrument brands, through our SMART repair service, collecting instrumentation using our own fleet.

This has stemmed from listening to our customers. We heard from customers that they weren’t happy with the quality of their sterilising trays and din baskets and sometimes they’d like to ask for a custom size and order just 1 of those…that’s fine by us. We’ve also added the bonus of being able to fit these out with silicone fixings.

Even though regulatory costs have continued to grow at a ridiculous cost, we’ve invested in progressive quality systems, which has ensured we maintain regulatory assurance for the in house manufacture of our sterile Kirschner Wires and Arthrodesis Wires, Steinmann pins and staples. This is crucial to support our in house manufacture as a business.

We’ve seen a demand for containerisation of certain ‘heavy’ sets, but there have been concerns around the sterility assurance of certain designs, so we are now offering the Quadlock Sterilisation Container in partnership with Symmetry Surgical. Why have 2 locks when you can have 4!

We’ve worked with speciality experts such as LEDA orthopaedics in utilising our expertise as instrument manufacturers and solution providers, to come up with bespoke sets of chisels and osteotomes to suit our/their surgeon’s needs. We loved creating these special sets and also offering the osteotomes with removable single-use blades, which was a first for us. Alongside this, we created our first hand and foot instrument catalogue, catalogue these products and supporting instruments for our customers.

We saw a trend in ENT surgeons using only certain patterns of rhinoscopy and sinuscopy punches, so we developed forgings to ensure these surgeons could get the same quality, in German steel for half the price. The designs have also upped their game in terms of decontamination, as can be completely taken apart view our rhinoscopy and sinuscopy catalogue here.

We were excited at the release of our German laparoscopic partner, Hermann’s release of their new catalogue. This improved on their previous catalogue, giving more detail and important product updates. This has been topped by our recent award to the all-Wales framework for laparoscopic instruments, which we are very proud of.

In house, we have also been very busy. We continue to promote our unrivalled full instrument tray set refurbishment service. We have already saved hospitals over £100000 utilising this service. This is also very pertinent in terms of reduction of protein on surgical instruments. We are able to completely resurface the instrumentation and protein test if required.

Rigid scope repairs were also another essential for our customers from a service and repair perspective. One year ago we built our new scope repair workshop. One year on, we are continuing to grow and develop this, being mindful of maintaining a quality service for our customers. We will only use new, top quality specifications and repair to the highest level possible. Our current return rate is 0%, with an 18-month warranty.

To support the development of our protein solutions, we launched a range of surgical scissors, which we called ‘Nero‘. This is a high-performance scissor range, tested to 600 cycles without deterioration and the coating offering antifouling benefits through massively improved wettability.

We were lucky enough to work with Bissinger on bringing their amazing Bi-Tech Bipolar scissor range to the U.K. Market. Cutting and dissecting with simultaneous bipolar coagulation, this unique scissor range can be serviced by Surgical Holdings and offer a significant saving vs other products on the market, with only one terminal, so no tangled wires.

Our latest adventure is the distribution of the Symmetry Surgical portfolio of products. This includes the Codman portfolio of surgical instruments, which was acquired by Symmetry back in 2012; classic Neuro products such as Rhoton dissectors and Malis. The range also includes the famous table-mounted retractor system, the original Bookwalter retractor system. We are also able to service and upgrade customer’s current Bookwalter kits, to ensure they have the best and lightest specification for their needs.

As traditional surgical instrument makers with combined manufacturing experience of over 300 years, we have enjoyed identifying the quality in many of the supporting products and manufacturers that we are working with. This has only helped underpin our core business of manufacturing and supplying high-quality surgical instrumentation. As part of this development, we also launched our new veterinary instruments website.

We see the Labour standards assurance system from the NHS supply chain as something to be very proud of, we were reaccredited to level 3 this year and will strive for level 4 moving forward. We firmly believe in an accountable Surgical instruments industry.

We look forward to the next 18 months and working with our customers to continue to provide what they want!