Originally called ‘The West Bromwich, Smethwick & District Manufacturers’ Occupational Health Service Ltd’, the charity’s founding member and first chairman, Mr Cecil George Pettit, secured a grant of £40,000 from the Nuffield Foundation to start things off.

A year after recruiting staff and finding suitable rented premises in West Bromwich town centre, the business started trading in 1963 by sending nurses into local factories and foundries on a daily or weekly basis.