Peacocks Medical Group and Potts Printers win NHS contracts

Jul 7 2009 by Rob Pattinson, The Journal

TWO North East firms have secured a share in National Health Service contracts totaling more than £8m.

Newcastle-based Peacocks Medical Group and Potts Printers, of Cramlington, have both been successful in their bids for five-year deals with the Newcastle Hospitals Trust.

Peacocks have won a £5m tender to supply external body supports, or orthotics, to the Foundation Trust, which includes Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary, General and Freeman Hospitals, until 2014.

Over the same period Potts Printers have secured a £3.75m deal to produce and store all of the Trust’s printing needs.

Among the 500 different products Potts will produce for the Trust will be all of the sheets used for administration at the hospital sites, internal publications and patient information leaflets.

The contract, the single biggest in the company’s history, will now account for 8% of the firm’s £9m annual turnover.

Potts’ Sales Director Dan Tobin said: “This is brilliant news for our organisation. The first quarter of this year was tough for all industries, so for us to secure a contract like this from one of the biggest and best performing hospital trusts in the country is fantastic.

“Not only is it a high-value contract, it’s local to us, which is great. And it’s high profile. When we heard we’d secured the work we called all of the managers in and the atmosphere was great.

“We employ 120 staff here and this work helps secure all of those jobs.”