City firm celebrates as MRSA-busting cleaners win exclusive NHS tender

Jan 22 2008 by Alex Turner, Liverpool Daily Post

THE fight against hospital superbugs MRSA and Clostridium difficile could earn one Liverpool firm millions of pounds.

Mount Pleasant Street-based Proventec was yesterday named as sole provider of specialist steam cleaning equipment to all NHS hospitals in England.

Proventec’s wholly-owned subsi-diary OspreyDeepClean, was awarded a 14-month tender, with an option for an additional year, from the NHS Purchase and Supply Agency.

The AIM-listed company has developed dry saturated steam cleaning machines and techniques that allow hospitals to decontaminate wards and clean patient equipment every day, removing micro-organisms, including superbugs.

The news of the contract sent Proventec’s shares up 75p to close at £8.10 on a day when most other shares slumped.

The cleaning technique does not require patients to be removed.

Each machine costs between £1,000 and £2,500, and the company recommends one unit for each ward. Hospitals usually have between 20 and 50 wards.

Proventec has already received orders worth £300,000 prior to the award of the tender and, although chief executive David Chestnutt refused to be drawn on the potential value of the tender to his business, he does expect demand to increase significantly.

Mr Chestnutt said: “This is a significant contract for Proventec and rewards the company for its commitment to innovation and problem-solving.

“The NHS Trusts have recognised the benefits of our technology and we are already starting to see strong demand convert into orders.

“We have been selling our equipment for a number of years but it tended to be in ones and twos and the machines were used for emergency cleaning. Now they are looking to use the machines on a daily basis.”

Proventec spent 18 months developing its products and submitting them to microbio-logical performance trials with University College London Hospitals.

“It is the first official recognition that steam is something that should be used in hospitals,” said Mr Chestnutt.

“They can effectively eradicate the infections that have caused so much trouble.

“Patients everywhere deserve wards that are cleaned regularly and thoroughly. It is only through this process we will break the cycle of hospital-acquired infections.”

Proventec was formed in 2005 as a result of the reverse takeover of Magma, a fire retardant coatings business and OspreyDeepClean, a specialist steam cleaning busi-ness, by Flintstone Technologies.

It supplies the food retail and preparation market, and hotels.

alex.turner