GENSOCIAL
Mobile data and communications specialist Terrafix has secured a multi-million pound government contract in what has been the company’s most successful year to date.
The Stoke-on-Trent firm has been awarded a £48 million contract on The Ambulance Radio Programme (ARP), in partnership with UK-based IT distributor Centerprise International.
The five-year contract will see Terrafix supply and support an in-vehicle system – comprising of Terrafix’s own ‘smart’ vehicle router and a tablet device – which is capable of running the national ambulance mobilisation software used by all of the UK’s ambulance services, and some 6,500 ambulances.
Terrafix’s latest contract win comes on the back of the company winning an £8.5 million contract from The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to design and develop the mobilisation software at the end of 2017.
Terrafix managing director Chris Green said: “The £8.5 million contract we won in 2017 was the biggest contract that Terrafix had ever won; to get something of that magnitude was unreal.
“We actually started work on the tender for this new contract in August 2019 and we’ve basically worked on it every day until about May this year, and we were successful in winning that contract.
“It’s unbelievable to think we have gone from an £8.5 million contract to one just shy of £50 million in about two years.”
The aim of the new contract is to supply resilient mobile data communication hardware suitable for ambulances, rapid response and other emergency vehicles.
The hardware will provide a connection to the national ambulance network and ensure paramedics, community responders and even GP’s have a common platform across the UK to communicate with control rooms.
Chris added: “The UK ambulance market has been a Terrafix customer for the last 25 years, and over that time we have provided systems at the height of the technology of the day all the way through to where we are today.
“There’s a lot of systems and kit out there already, but this will end up being a complete innovation refresh for every ambulance trust in the country. We are proud to keep Staffordshire very firmly on the map for innovation.”
Last year, Terrafix invested more than £1 million to relocate its entire business from the Newfield Industrial Estate in Tunstall to a brand new headquarters on Festival Park.
It also purchased a second building in Scotland to serve its Scottish customers and has increased its total workforce to 74.
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Terrafix’s sales and marketing director, Carol Rosson, said: “It’s important to remember that we have still got a lot of other business and a lot of other customers.
“We already provide 80 per cent of the ambulance service with other systems and we do a lot in the military and other arenas, and we are still winning other business. So it’s a balancing act to ensure that existing customers don’t suffer as well as supporting this tender.”
She added: “It’s been a real positive moving into our new building. The business that we’re getting both locally and nationally, with the emergency services, is ten-fold.
“It’s also given the staff a big boost in morale because they can actually see that the company is here to stay.”
Chris concluded: “As a company, we have adapted to this new world and now we want to expand and enforce a much more flexible and a better way of working.
“This year has been the most successful year that Terrafix has ever had, and we feel so fortunate to be able to say that.”
