search.noResults

search.searching

dataCollection.invalidEmail
note.createNoteMessage

search.noResults

search.searching

orderForm.title

orderForm.productCode
orderForm.description
orderForm.quantity
orderForm.itemPrice
orderForm.price
orderForm.totalPrice
orderForm.deliveryDetails.billingAddress
orderForm.deliveryDetails.deliveryAddress
orderForm.noItems
OPERATING THEATRES


Equipping and fitting out 21st-century facilities


Howorth Air Technology will still be best-known to many in healthcare as the company which, working with world-renowned orthopaedic surgeon, Sir John Charnley, in the early 1960s, developed the world’s first ultraclean surgical enclosure. Today, sales of its Exflow UCV canopy system to both UK and overseas customers remain strong, but the company now offers an ever broader range of complementary operating theatre and ITU products. As HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie, discovered from Group Sales director, Tom Ford, it also has extensive experience as a turnkey theatre contractor, and is seeing growing demand for a recently introduced ‘digital integration’ service.


Howorth Air Technology’s origins were not, in fact, in healthcare; the business was founded in Bolton in 1858 as James Howorth & Co Ltd to manufacture apparatus for humidifying, ventilating, heating, air-conditioning, conveying, duct control, and drying applications within the textile industry. Indeed serving the textile sector – with Lancashire’s cotton mills on its doorstep – and, latterly, providing equipment to ensure a controlled environment in brewing halls, were the business’s staples well into the 1950s. In 1945 Hugh Howorth, the grandson of the company’s founder, took over the running of the family firm from his father, Frederick, who had died towards the end of the Second World War. Under his stewardship the company began further developing and patenting ventilation-related equipment for the


textile and brewing industries, plus HVAC systems designed to protect textiles and artwork in museums.


A new direction


In early 1961 Howorth’s path took a new turn when Hugh Howorth was approached by one of the era’s leading orthopaedic surgeons, Professor Sir John Charnley, who had recently begun undertaking pioneering hip replacement surgery at Wrightington Hospital in Wigan. While he had by then undertaken a small number of such procedures, the Professor was concerned over a post-surgery infection rate of around 9 per cent. He got in contact with Hugh Howorth, and the latter’s company then set about designing an airflow system to filter air and direct sources of air away from the patient in the theatre.


Howorth Group Sales director, Tom Ford.


The system’s successful development and use saw post-operative infection rates following orthopaedic surgery considerably reduced, and Professor Charnley went on to perfect his hip replacements with the introduction of the ‘round back’ and ‘Cobra’ designs. His low friction arthroplasty hip replacements became the ‘Gold Standard’ in hip surgery.


For many years the ultraclean air entrainment system that the surgeon and Howorth had jointly developed was known as the Charnley-Howorth Airflow,


Two sales leaflets from 1862 showing Howorth’s heritage. June 2018 Health Estate Journal 53


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68