Sector
Two-way radios for healthcare and care homes
Care staff work alone more than most. A night carer on a corridor, a porter in a basement or a community nurse in a car park needs to be able to call for help and to know that somebody will notice if they stop responding. A radio with a lone-worker timer and an emergency button does that, and a team that can call for a second pair of hands without leaving a resident gets more done.
Care homes usually take FW-400 radios with lone-worker cover and a quiet earpiece, one per carer on shift plus the office. Hospital estates, porters and security teams run a larger fleet through a repeater so every block and basement is covered. Community teams spread across a region carry PoC radios, which work anywhere on the mobile network and show the office where everyone is.
Handsets are wipe-clean and we supply one per user rather than a shared pool. Healthcare customers normally lease, so the fleet, batteries and replacements are a fixed cost.
Typical accessories
- Wipe-clean earpieces
- Multi-chargers
- Spare batteries
- Belt clips and holsters
What matters in healthcare and care homes
The problems radios solve here, and how we set them up.
Lone workers
Lone-worker timers prompt a check-in and raise an alarm if there is no reply. Man-down on the HP605 and R7 alarms automatically if the user falls.
Long shifts
Batteries last a double shift. High-capacity batteries and multi-chargers at the nurses' station keep the fleet topped up.
Hygiene
Sealed bodies wipe clean. Individual earpieces are issued to each user.
Alarms
Nurse-call, fire and door alarms can be linked to the radios so staff are told where to go, not just that something has happened.
Recommended radios
What we send to healthcare and care homes customers
Licensed digital DMR
Fellwave FW-400
Our standard hire radio. Licensed 5 W UHF digital, no screen, USB-C charging.
- UHF 400–470 MHz
- 256 channels in 16 zones, 16-position rotary knob
- Up to 5 W high / 2 W low
Licensed digital DMR
Hytera HP605
Hytera's rugged mid-range radio. IP68, 2 m drop, 20 to 30-hour battery.
- UHF 400–470 MHz (VHF 136–174 MHz available)
- 1024 channels, 64 zones
- 4 W / 1 W UHF (5 W / 1 W VHF)
Repeaters
Hytera HR655
A compact 2 kg repeater with a built-in duplexer and battery backup.
- 25 W (IP54 indoor version) or 10 W (IP67 outdoor version)
- UHF 400–470 MHz or VHF 137–174 MHz
- DMR Tier II + analogue FM
Healthcare and care homes: common questions
Can the radios alert when a resident presses a call button?
Yes, with an interface to the nurse-call system. The alert and room number show as a message on display radios and as a tone on the rest.
Do radios interfere with medical equipment?
Licensed business radios are used throughout NHS estates. We follow the site's policy on where handhelds may transmit and set low power where it is required.
How do community teams use radios?
PoC radios work over 4G, so district nurses and domiciliary carers across a county can be on one group with GPS and emergency alerts, with no range limit.
Radio hire near you
Enquire
Tell us about your healthcare and care homes job. We'll spec and quote it today.
How many radios, the dates, where you are and what the job is. That is enough for us to put a kit list together.
- Email[email protected]
- Monday to Friday, 08:00–18:00. Out-of-hours support for live events by arrangement.
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