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An outsourced provider of a range of assistive technology services to the NHS and local authorities, NRS Healthcare’s Southampton depot celebrated its first anniversary of working with Southampton City Council to support people in the community to live independently.

Southampton City Council has said it has been impressed with the service that NRS Healthcare (www.nrshealthcare.com) has provided, highlighting the team’s excellent communication, organisation and planning.

The company took over the running of Integrated Community Equipment Services (ICES) with the local authority and Southampton’s City Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) in July 2020, overcoming numerous challenges throughout the pandemic.

Although the contract officially started in July, mobilisation began in January 2020 and by March 23rd, the country had been put into its first official lockdown.

Despite this, NRS Healthcare staff worked tirelessly in line with lockdown restrictions and the service began on time, without any delays.

Over the past 12 months the ICES provider has delivered more than 1,800 pieces of equipment per month to people in the Southampton community and exceeded its target by recycling 83 percent of returned equipment, ready for future use.

Paul Frampton, Commissioner for Community Equipment Services at Southampton City Council, said: “We are now one year into the contract and I am delighted with how the new service has developed and quickly become established.

“The NRS team has worked very hard to ensure that the service meets its obligations and I have been continually impressed with their commitment, dedication and flexibility.

“Excellent communication and team work has been fundamentally important in achieving good outcomes for the people of Southampton.

“It has been a challenging year, but NRS staff were resourceful and demonstrated excellent organisation and planning during and before the contract started and I look forward to continuing to work with them in the years’ ahead.”

NRS Healthcare loans thousands of items of equipment each year on behalf of the council or the NHS. This includes items such as hoists, perching stools, profiling beds, mattresses and rollators, as well as more specialised equipment to help people young and old to live full, active and independent lives for as long as possible.

To mark the first anniversary, the NRS teams reflected on the past year, whilst enjoying obligatory cupcakes.

Mike Cutler, Service Centre Manger at both depots for NRS Healthcare, commented: “The team has done an incredible job over the past year in extremely testing times. It is a testament to their hard work and commitment, how well the contracts have gone on.”

NRS Healthcare has been working with technology-enabled care specialist Appello to reduce first-time telecare call failure rates by 27 percent.

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