About Us

BES Healthcare started life in 1993 as Better Ergonomic Seating, as a partnershi  created by Barend ter Haar and Greg Amos – both of whom had been in the mobility/rehab world for a number of years previously.

The company’s product offering initially was the Varilite™ range from Seattle, USA Varilite™ brought to the medical cushion world the technology already known worldwide from the outdoor goods market found in Cascade’s Therm-a-rest® camping mattresses. This air-foam support is at the heart of the Varilite range. A few years later the Bodypoint® range of positioning belts and harnesses, and the FSA pressure mapping system broadened the range under the Better Ergonomic Seating banner. For over ten years these brands have been market leaders across the UK and Ireland.

BES Healthcare entered the decontamination field with the AquaPhase™ wheelchair washer. At the time we realised that wheelchairs being brought in for repair or re-issue by our main seating customers were providing a risk of cross-contamination to engineers, staff, and subsequent users; therefore there should be an opportunity to provide a better service from the wheelchair services as a result of improved decontamination processes.

As it turned out, the timing was great to probe another market – community loan stores. The Integrated Community Equipment Services (ICES) programme for bringing together Health and Social Services equipment provision was just being launched. BES Helthcare became the adviser to each of the regions as to best infection control practice, the advice being later incorporated into a MDA advisory document. This also resulted in most loan stores acquiring dedicated washing machines for returned loan equipment, to protect the cleaning staff from acquiring infections arising from the aerosols emitted by their current spray cleaning equipment, and at the same time saving the time previously spent on manual cleaning. An early customer saved so much on the time released to repair rather than discard equipment that they could afford to buy a second machine the following year. Hospitals, noticing that the community had stolen a march on decontaminating beds, started to acquire our SaniPhase bed washers as well.

Part of the pressure care programme expansion was from taking on the Shear Comfort® medical sheepskin product range from Australia – part bed and chair overlays, and part specialist protective footwear for those with diabetes, arthritis, poor circulation, etc. Elsewhere in our healthcare products ranges, over the years we have taken on the UK and Eire distribution of Penco walker glides for easier pushing of walkers, the Myself pelvic floor muscle training system and the Stealth range of specialist head and body supports.

Meanwhile our decontamination interests spawned a separate division, Infection Prevention, which continues to offer not only the AquaPhase™ range of chemical based washer disinfectors.

BES started as a home based business in Cambridgeshire from which it grew into needing a dedicated office/warehouse. In June 2007 we moved to new premises in Bristol.

BES Healthcare set up a joint venture business in Adelaide, Australia in 2008, Healthcare Innovations Australia (HIA). HIA took over the Shear Comfort®business in July 2009 and is also the Australian distributor for the Varilite™ and FSA ranges..

BES Healthcare has been certified by BSI to ISO 9001:2015 under certificate number FS644625.