Our History
Our History
As pioneers of solutions for healthcare environments, we have a long and successful history, developing and manufacturing products that significantly enhance the lives of patients, residents, and healthcare professionals on a global scale.
Vernacare's story first began back in 1961, when Vernon & Co (our original name) began to develop disposable hospital products. Our manufacturing originally began with hospital macerators and disposable medical pulp - the pulp products hit the scene in 1964! Then came our first macerator in the Vernaid 750, and many iterations and improvements to take us to the present day.
We may have began as solely a pulp manufacturer, but that's definitely changed today. From 2017 onwards, Vernacare grew immensely, bringing in four new businesses and a host of new product categories; Bathing and Continence Care, Environmental Cleaning, Woundcare, Surgical, Clinical Waste Management, and even more.
Now, we are all One Vernacare, and supply medical devices and consumables across the majority of departments and facilites in healthcare, with high-quality, sustainable solutions to improve the lives of patients and healthcare professionals.
We now have over 550 colleagues working for Vernacare, across five UK manufacturing sites in Chorley, Bolton, Blackwood, Newtown and Worksop plus an office across the Atlantic in Ontario, Canada which has been part of Vernacare since the 80s!
Key Highlights from our Journey:
1960s
1961 - Vernon & Co began developing disposable medical products.
1964 - The innovative range of disposable medical pulp hit the market. This environmentally-friendly, cost-effective product was designed to prevent infection spread in hospitals, and was pioneering for it's time.
1980s/90s
1984 - Our first hospital macerator was launched - the Vernaid750!
1986 - The second office was opened, all the way across the atlantic in Canada!
1991 - The name Vernacare was born! The company changed its trading name from Vernaid to Vernacare.
2000s
2000 - We entered the Australian Market for the first time, and began long-standing healthcare relationships with facilities that we still support today.
Throughout the 2000s, a number of new Vernacare products were brought to market, including the commode chair, and new single-use pulp washbowls to replace the widely-used practice of plastic.
2008 - Introducing the first Vortex macerator! This macerator saw a great increase in innovation, with our invention of SmartFlow Technology™ featuring for the first time.
2017
2017 was such a big year that it gets a category of it's own. In November 2017, Vernacare undertook it's first acquisition, acquiring Synergy Healthcare Healthcare Consumable Solutions from Steris. This expanded the Vernacare portfolio, and brought brand new product ranges into the fold. Many brands that you see today came with this move including Conti®, Azo™, Comfi™, and bert®.
With the acquisition, our Head Office moved to the bigger site we now owned in Chorley, just a few miles from the original one in Bolton. And, this is where our Head Office remains today.
2020s
2020 - In July 2020, we completed the purchase of the infection prevention arm of Frontier Plastics, which provided an extensive range of clinical waste disposal solutions. With this, Sharpsafe® and Clinisafe® joined the brand family, and we added Harm Reduction as part of our offering.
2021 - While many businesses were slowly down in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, Vernacare were busy making a move into the Surgical instruments field with the acquisition of Robinson Healthcare.
This acquisition added the market-leading Instrapac® brand to our offering, plus the widely popular Robinson Healthcare woundcare and cotton wool business. We also took a step into the animal world with the addition of Robinson Animal Healthcare, and Animalintex®. The move resulted in a great number of fantastic new colleagues joining us from our new Worksop facility.
2023 - Our latest acquisition, in December 2023 we invited Splice Cast Limited into Vernacare International. With a strong history in Women's Health, Splice Cast are a leading developer of single-use vaginal speculums and accompanying supplementary products. This boosted our already existing Women's Health portfolio, and made us the UK's largest provider of unbreakable vaginal speculums.
We've been on a significant journey over the last 60 years, and we're excited to continue our development.
Do you want to be a part of an exciting future?
Take a closer look at our careers page to find out what it's like working at Vernacare.
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