Tunstall Healthcare

Tunstall’s story starts on 20 March 1957, when Norman Tunstall and his business partner Jack Byers set up Tunstall Byers, a small television and radio repair shop near Doncaster. Norman Tunstall, an engineer, had designed a solution for his elderly mother so she could call for help at home whenever she needed it, a piece of personal problem-solving that turned into something much bigger. He and Byers adapted that idea into the Warden’s Intercommunication Call System (WICS), letting older people in local authority accommodation summon help in an emergency. A newspaper at the time described the concept as “years ahead of government thought,” and the company went on to become the first to transmit alarm calls over the public telephone network.

Growth followed steadily rather than overnight. In 1984, the company moved to its current site in Whitley, five miles from where it started, and around that time Tunstall Response was established, providing monitoring services for local authorities, housing providers, emergency services, and charities across the UK. International expansion came later: the business integrated a German medical technology company, Schmelter-Claas, in 1978, acquired Sweden’s Attendo Systems and Response Group, and opened its first Australian response center in Brisbane in 2001, followed by Tauranga, New Zealand, in 2002.

The early 2000s brought telecare and telehealth into the business, effectively creating the technology-enabled care market as it exists today. That groundwork has kept paying off: Tunstall now operates in 19 countries, and its Brisbane office alone employs more than 100 people caring for over 70,000 clients across the Asia-Pacific region.

Tunstall marked its 65th anniversary in March 2022, a milestone for the UK and Ireland. Managing Director Gavin Bashar described it as reflecting thousands of employees and millions of people helped over the decades. The company has continued investing in newer technology since, including its Cognitive Care platform and the 2022 acquisition of German company BeWo, carrying forward a commitment that, by Tunstall’s own account, hasn’t changed since Norman Tunstall first built something to help his mother: letting people live independently and safely, wherever they choose to live.