Doro AB acquires Invicta Telecare from Clarion Housing, increasing to nearly 200,000 users (UK)

September 12, 2019 | by

While this Editor was on holiday, Sweden’s Doro AB increased its presence in the UK with the acquisition of Invicta Telecare, parent of Centra Pulse and Connect. Invicta’s products will join the Welbeing PERS service. which at the time of their acquisition last June had about 75-80,000 users [TTA 7 June 18].

Invicta was sold by Clarion Housing Group, the UK’s largest social housing association, which includes a property development company and a charitable foundation. Invicta’s 2018 revenue was £6.3 million. Like Welbeing, Centra Pulse offers basic and mobile PERS, but also has multi-sensor in-home connected home capability. It is also one of the top three UK monitoring services and is a major provider of after-hours contact services for telecare providers, such as housing associations and local authorities. The sale was effective on 1 September.

The UK remains the largest telecare market in the European region with an estimated 1.8 million telecare connections. It faces a transition to digital from analog systems which affects social care spending and residential service capabilities. Doro operates in the UK and about 40 countries, with a core business in mobile phones specially designed for older adults. Doro announcement, press release

A tale of two chessboards

January 28, 2015 | by | 2 Comments

Things happen ever faster on the second half of the chessboard. No sooner had the ink dried on our predictions for 2015, and Dr Eric Topol told the story of the first patient to call him with a smartphone diagnosis than Alivecor announced that they now have CE certification for their AF-diagnosing app.

Mind you, whilst Dr Topol might welcome this, it seems that others are still on a different chessboard: under the heading “Doctors fear that new health tech is turning UK into a nation of “worried well””, a recent survey of UK doctors showed that “Seven out of ten (76%) GPs said they had noticed a marked increase in number of patients “self-diagnosing” from the internet over the past twelve months” suggesting, in the words of 1066 & all that, that technology is a Bad Thing. What, this reviewer wonders, will be the reaction to (more…)

What do 65+ really want? Travel the world.

September 24, 2014 | by | 1 Comment

For those of us who develop and implement technologies to assist–and marketers who appeal to–the 65+ market (and in reality those 55+), the aspirations spotlighted in this ‘bucket list’ illustrate this age group’s current mindset a lot better than the usual picture sketched in much of the consumer and healthcare press of the obese, bundle o’ chronic conditions and chronically ‘needy’ older adult. Centra Pulse, the telecare arm of non-profit Circle Housing with 125,000 customers, surveyed over 2,000 65+ UK adults and came up with a ‘top 40’ (just like the old radio hit lists) must-do list. Some are ambitious (#1, 3, 4) and others are prosaic (#2, 9, 11). Listing top 15 here:

  1. Travel the world
  2. See my family settled
  3. Live to 100
  4. Write a bestselling novel
  5. Win the lottery
  6. Buy a house
  7. Learn a language
  8. Be financially secure (more…)