Salts Healthcare is a Birmingham institution, not just in medical spheres but as a paragon of innovation in any industrial sector. JON GRIFFIN interviews the brothers currently leading one of the region’s great family-owned firms.
Robert Salt leans back in his chair in the historic surroundings of the family company boardroom and offers a fascinating insight into nearly 325 years of industrial tradition and innovation.
“Profit is important but what we do is more important,” he says. “We could have made a lot more money but we chose to go down particular routes because it was the right thing to do.
“We could have manufactured abroad, we could have used cheaper materials.”
As elder brother and co-owner Peter Salt goes on to relate: “We had a competitor here the other day and I told them we were ostomy royalty – which we are – and he loved that.”
Ostomy, with its various bowel-related connections, and the concept of royalty status are not necessarily natural bedfellows in the course of any conversation – until you get to meet the Salt brothers.
Peter and Robert stand at the helm of a manufacturing success story which has grown from humble beginnings at the time of the Napoleonic Wars into a pioneering medical concern making and distributing stoma care products and transforming the lives of countless patients stricken by the grim realities – and still to this day often enduring the stigma – of various bowel and bladder conditions, including IBD and cancer.
The brothers currently heading one of Birmingham’s most enduring and influential manufacturing enterprises – which has developed over more than three centuries into a £150 million turnover medical hothouse employing more than 700 people – are a complete contrast in styles, both in conversation and personality.
Whilst Robert is garrulous to a fault and apt to explode into slightly unnerving booming laughter at any second, his elder brother Peter is considered and understated, but with a twinkle in the eye. It makes for a fascinating boardroom combination.
As Robert explains: “Humour is not just a really important part, it is an essential part of being able to run a company. Our father Edward had a good sense of humour but was quiet. My mother, who is still around at 97, has always been slightly wicked and funny.
“There are a lot of stories we can’t tell you. They are unbelievably funny involving customers and suppliers, particularly Americans who were trying to be slightly sycophantic.”
And whilst many of the Salt brothers’ rich fund of anecdotes must unfortunately remain out of the public arena for business reasons, the story of the life and times of the Midlands manufacturer which launched in Wolverhampton in the reign of William of Orange, will always be worth retelling.
Robert lets his brother recall the early history. “Peter knows the history because he is closer to it,” he says, before exploding into gales of laughter.
Cue Peter. “It was started in 1701 by John and William Salt, father and son. They were instrument makers and cutlers. Our side of the family went into surgical amputation knives, splinting and devices for removing teeth.”
As the 18th century unfolded with the onset of the Napoleonic Wars, the fledgling company’s reputation grew.
Robert interjects: “We were by royal appointment to the UK, and also some of the royal houses around Europe – and also Napoleon.”
There’s even a long-standing, if slightly hazy, link between the most famous French emperor of them all and the Salt family.
Peter explains: “This chap, Thomas Partridge Salt, was on the island of Elba during his exile. His job was to look after Napoleon who had a bad tooth, so he extracted it.”
Robert adds: “We used to supply Napoleon. We had one of his teeth. That was not necessarily related to the business but it was related to the family.”
Whatever the facts surrounding Napoleon and his dental difficulties during exile, Thomas Partridge Salt proved an early exemplar of the family’s undoubted talent for innovation and ingenuity.
Peter says: “Each generation brings something to the business. Thomas Partridge Salt invented a spring-loaded truss which was patented throughout the world in the 1800s. In fact, we have discovered a book, which is still in print, that he wrote about the treatment of hernias and trusses.
“The company evolved from cutlery into surgical instruments and then we got into trusses and splinting. Then the First World War came along and we set up special clinics for limb-fitting. There was one in London, Manchester and Birmingham.”
The turning point for Salts – which would ultimately prove to be the turning point in the lives of tens of thousands of bowel illness sufferers – was the company’s work after the Second World War with Professor Bryan Brooke. Brooke was a British surgeon then working at Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital who was a leading light in developing the inverted stoma technique but didn’t have a collection device – hence he contacted Peter and Robert’s father, Edward.
“They used to sell bandage rounds with absorbent pads, it was horrendous,” says Peter. “They didn’t have stomas. The old man worked with Professor Brooke on a bag which would collect the human waste. It was the first one in the UK.”
Edward Salt’s work with Professor Brooke would in due course change the history of bowel illness treatment – and the lives of countless patients – immeasurably for the better, a significant milestone for both the Midlands manufacturer and the wider arena of medical research.
Robert continues: “The old man managed to find some bag products that were being made in the States but they wouldn’t allow us to make it on their behalf. Our father had to come up with his own design, and that was really the turning point for the company.
“He was speaking to our mum and she said ‘well, if he does nothing more, he has to help these people’.”
Mrs Julia Salt’s support for her husband's medical innovations back in the late 40s ensured the Salt medical bandwagon was moving in the right direction.
“We were probably the first company in Europe to manufacture colostomy bags,” says Robert. “Professor Brooke has been commended enormously for what he had done – he really changed the lives of patients by having a fairly simple operation.
“Equally, what our father did – and he was never truly recognised which is a shame – actually changed these people’s lives by trying to give them back some normality. It was a turning point for the company but not financially. That came later.
“A lot of the effort and energy went into ostomy, which was not that financially viable. It was just the passion that he had for helping these people.”
The work – and altruistic nature – of Edward Salt and the early colostomy bag inventions is today reflected in the emergence of a small post-war enterprise employing a few dozen specialist workers into today’s £150 million turnover medical powerhouse, a familiar sight to thousands of motorists who brave the Aston Expressway daily.
Operating from headquarters just off Dartmouth Circus on the Expressway, Salts is split into two divisions, Salts Stoma Care, which designs and manufactures stoma care devices and additional products, and Medilink, a national network of dispensing care centres which supplies and dispenses stoma care and continence products by all manufacturers.
The 21st-century version of one of the UK’s oldest family-owned manufacturing concerns provides a range of user-friendly stoma bags and other stoma products offering improved quality of life for those living with a stoma. Edward Salt’s mantra has been replicated by his sons Peter and Robert, along with their staff, many of them long serving.
Robert says: “One of the loveliest things was that the marketeers were trying to come up with a company strapline, and they came up with something that has become a bit of a mantra in our company, and that is ‘caring, listening and innovating to improve lives’.
“Genuinely that is what we believe in, and that has never gone away.”
That innovation to change lives remains at the heart of the Salts’ business model, a creed which continually faces competition from larger multi-million-pound rivals such as ConvaTec, Coloplast and Hollister.
“We are a pretty big company but not compared to some of our competitors,” says Robert. “But we have changed the face of products which are offered in the market. We also offer the most premium products.”
That attention to aesthetic detail for products offering comfort to bowel and bladder disease patients is again part of the Salts approach to sensitive medical areas.
“What we are trying to do is change it from being medical-looking to make it more like an everyday item, not exactly a fashion item, but we have changed the market.”
As Peter proudly proclaims: “We have taken big business from them [competitors].”
But, as with any family-owned company which has been around for more than 300 years, there have been peaks and troughs, most recently with Covid, and more personally closer to home, with the sad loss of brother and chief executive Philip to an aggressive form of cancer at the age of 68.
Philip had joined the family business in 1971, starting on the factory floor whilst learning the ropes from father Edward, part of the tenth-generation of the Salt family to work at the company.
A force of nature who was passionate about research and improving the wellbeing of patients, he was a national figure in his industry, becoming chairman of the British Healthcare Trade Association, trustee of the Bowel Disease Research Foundation and was awarded an honorary doctorate from Staffordshire University.
Understandably, Robert’s natural good humour goes into temporary retreat as he recalls his elder brother. “He was a larger than life character, really good at getting in front of associations.”
Poignantly, Peter adds: “I think the key to it all is the fact that the three of us got on so well.” Says Robert: “We all share a sense of humour, and that’s how we get through difficulties.”
The Covid pandemic presented Salts with a raft of unforeseen difficulties, but the brothers and their staff fought back to help safeguard the future of the firm.
“Covid was difficult but the only good thing was that we were able to come to the office, because we made necessary products,” says Peter.
Robert recalls: “The bad thing that happened within the industry was that they stopped operations. Some areas of excellence would do it and we employ around 30 nurses that go out into the community and into hospitals.
“Some of those continued to do that. They had to go through quite a lot of emotional support which we were having to provide. There was interaction with patients and that is when we utilised the technology of Zoom or Teams. It actually became quite a success story, enabling people to speak in a place where they felt completely comfortable – in their home – at a time that was more convenient to them.”
If Covid proved a tough – but ultimately beatable – opponent, the present Labour government has also been a thorn in the side to this most durable of manufacturing companies.
“The annoying thing for us is that we produce and manufacture our own products, and we just get hit all the time with National Insurance going up,” explains Peter. “You do not expect to have it too easy but they are certainly not giving manufacturing much encouragement.”
Meanwhile, Robert warns: “We manufacture everything in the UK but we are actively looking at the possibilities of manufacturing abroad. We are not saying that we will, but that we have to consider these options. The increase to National Insurance was at a time when the NHS is looking to bring costs down and suppliers are increasing their prices, so there is this squeeze. A lot of people I know are in a similar situation and are having to change their working practices.”
Faced with pressures on the home front Salts have increasingly flown their distinguished flag on the international front, establishing export markets from Europe to Australasia.
Robert says: “It is now probably 60-40 in favour of the UK. Not all that long ago it was dramatically different. The majority is still UK, but we are actively looking abroad.”
Peter adds: “You need other markets and we have set up companies in Scandinavia.”
With modern state-of-the-art developments at the company’s headquarters in Richard Street in the shape of an academy – which provides university-accredited courses and training facilities – and the Central Skin Sciences Institute, the company continues to innovate and remain at the cutting edge of its sector.
Says Robert: “We have continued to stick to our principles and invested heavily in research and development by trying to understand what the patient wants.”
So what does the future hold for a family company which has survived for over 300 years, spanning several wars to today’s hi-tech internet age, where technological development in the shape of AI will once again change the face of the workplace?
“I think we have got a rosy future,” says Peter. “We have got good products and good ideas. And it is still very much family. People who work for us like us because we are family. My PA has been my PA for 42 years.”
Robert adds: “We are diversifying into other areas. It is more about prevention than looking after. We are involved in other technologies to make sure that we have got a future.”
Peter concludes: “I think that we will be handing over some good developments to the next generation. In the end we can’t guarantee anything. It is up to them because like anything it is good to have some new blood and new ideas.”
Peter may be slightly wrong in his assessment. If you can guarantee anything about the Salts, it’s surely the case that the celebrated family sense of humour will continue to survive.
