Allis Medical bags

WELLBEING WEEK

MNL MNL Openhouse - the family business that is leading the way for NHS

As the leading provides for the emergency services and healthcare sectors, Openhouse Products is a family run business that prides itself on its bespoke hand crafted medical bags made here in Merseyside. BY AILIS FINN-LOOBY

Speaking to the founder’s daughter and sales and marketing director Sam Proctor, she told merseynewslive how the company stared and their future expansion ambitions, “My dad (Brian Jones) started as a machine repair man and repaired sewing machines across the Wirral, he also had three seamstresses that worked for him making laptop bags. One of their husbands was a firefighter and said that the laptop bags would be perfect for the ambulance service.”

At the time, before Openhouse started, paramedics were using lunch boxes, holdalls, and gym bags to carry equipment which was inefficient. Brian Jones tweaked the laptop bag slightly, and the ambulance service loved it; and the famous Openhouse brand was born.

The family is also very musical, with Brian Jones having a recording studio in the house, when Sam was younger “we always had people coming and going all the time and one day a friend made reference to it, saying it was like an ‘openhouse’ and

it stuck.” Originally being named Openhouse studios and then Openhouse Products.

The family is also very musical, with Brian Jones having a recording studio in the house, when Sam was younger “we always had people coming and going all the time and one day a friend made reference to it, saying it was like an ‘openhouse’ and it stuck.” Originally being named Openhouse studios and then Openhouse Products.

It is not often that bags are hand made in the UK now, with most of them being made overseas due the cost. But for Openhouse this isn’t the case, because of the complexity of the bags there isn’t a machine that is able to produce the same level of work, Sam added “Due to how durable they have to be for the environment they are used in in the ambulance service, they’ve got to be well made. There isn’t a machine that could make the quality that we need.” The factory does have certain automated machines, such as cutting and trim machines but the majority of the products have to be handmade. After an unusual couple of years due to the pandemic, PPE and constant sanitisation has become the norm. For Openhouse, there were already ahead of their time, creating a material that is anti-bacterial for the bags, “back in 2006 there were big talks about infection control and how it was really important for the ambulance services. We developed micrAgard and now every two to three years we have continued to develop it and make it bigger and better. As a result we have now created a dual sided fabric.” Eager to expand the company internationally, Openhouse have recently opened a factory floor in China that produces the standard range bags which are more affordable to smaller companies and volunteers. They have also moved down under, with director Andrew moving to Australia in order to improve of the sales and further expand the business, “down the line it is in our business plan to look at creating a factory over there so it mirrors what we have here – hopefully that can be something for the future.”

It’s a no-brainer that the leading supplier for the NHS is looking to grow their business to gain more clients and awareness of their products as they also make bags to order for private and smaller companies.

The vision for the brand is growing, after recently working with three new distributors that are starting up in several countries, Sam hopes this will raise bigger awareness of the OH brand and expand to more distributors in every country to “get brand awareness across the world.”

It’s nice to come to work and know that you’re making a big difference because what we are doing, to some degree is helping save lives”