Debbie Hirons, a former Health Visitor, midwife and NHS manager, set up healthcare consultancy ‘Solutions Across Child Health Services’ in April 2004.

‘We are a consultancy offering anything to do with child health in its widest sense. We work with NHS trusts, charities and public bodies nationwide’ says Debbie.

Debbie and her colleague, an ex-paediatric nurse manager, were inspired to set up the business to capitalise on the market created by the vast number of government changes related to childrens’ services in recent years. ‘ New policies and documents related to children are raining down on us – and there is not enough ‘people power’ available within public services to deliver the targets being set.’

Initially, most business was won through existing contacts and word of mouth. However, within a year Debbie was ready to market the consultancy to a wider audience.

‘Connecting Somerset gave us financial help towards creating a website in June 2005. The impact on the business has been brilliant! We occupy a niche in the market – and although we knew there were bound to be prospective customers out there, we were not sure how to reach them. We have promoted the website through a pay-per-click campaign on the search engines and have been amazed by the response. Last week we received 1500 hits on Google. Now these have begun to translate to sales and we have already landed two new business contracts purely as a result of the pay-per-click campaign.’

As well as the new marketing avenues the website has opened up, Debbie is feeling the broader benefits of broadband.

‘Broadband has changed my world! ‘ says Debbie. ‘So much of our work involves reviewing the latest policies and papers on child related subjects that it is vital we can find and download reports quickly. With broadband, it is ten times faster than it was before – so we are saving a significant amount of time and this is making the business more productive.’

‘What’s more, because broadband is always on, it is so much easier to check email and respond instantly. And because it frees up the telephone line, we are not so likely to miss out on calls from customers. Previously, if we were on the Internet, they may not have been able to get through. So overall we can offer a much better service to customers.’

Looking forward, Debbie says that she plans to develop and update the website to build on its success so far. ‘We plan to develop an interactive self- assessment tool around the subject of partnership working. This will be yet another way of making our business stand out and attract customers to our services. Broadband has really opened up no end of new possibilities for the business’