DDC Celebrates 35 Years of Infection-Control Innovation

POOLE, UK — DDC, the Poole, Dorset-based manufacturer of infection-control and patient-care equipment, is marking its 35th anniversary in 2026.

The milestone caps three and a half decades of growth that began not in a boardroom, but on a dairy farm, where founder and chairman Martin Priest first discovered his talent for solving problems with his hands.

Priest left school with few formal qualifications and started his working life in agriculture, milking cows through long shifts on a dairy farm. To fill the hours between shifts, he took on manual engineering work, making components for electronics companies at a time before CNC or computerised machinery existed. The experience revealed an aptitude, and a passion, for engineering that would shape the rest of his career. In his late teens and early twenties, Priest left agriculture behind to pursue engineering full-time, drawn to what he describes as the essence of the profession: solving problems that others cannot.

That instinct led directly to the founding of DDC Dolphin in 1991. Priest identified a specific, unmet need in UK care homes: staff had no safe, reliable way to wash and decontaminate bedpans and urine bottles, a manual process that posed a real infection-control risk. In response, he designed and built the company's first machine, a bedpan washer disinfector with a three-bottle capacity. The product found immediate demand, and DDC Dolphin has been manufacturing infection-control equipment ever since.

Thirty-five years on, DDC Dolphin's product range has expanded well beyond that first machine. The company now designs and manufactures Panamatic bedpan washer disinfectors, Pulpmatic medical pulp macerators, Incomatic incontinence product macerators, UVMATIC UVC air purification systems, and Vacumatic waste disposal systems, alongside moving and handling equipment for healthcare settings. Its equipment is now relied upon by more than 5,000 healthcare sites across six continents, supported by a global network of distributors. The milestone also arrives during a period of external recognition for the company: DDC Dolphin was recently named a finalist in the NHS Waste Management Awards 2026, reflecting its ongoing role in sustainable, infection-safe waste handling across the UK health service.

Reflecting on the anniversary, Priest credited the company's growth to its people as much as its products. "We all do our utmost to improve people's working lives, not just here in the business, but in their family lives at home as well," he said. "We have a wonderful team, with people of real experience from so many different cultures, from all over the world. It's been a wonderful time."

DDC Dolphin's stated mission is to empower healthcare teams with smarter ways to prevent infection, with a long-term vision of a world where smart infection control makes healthcare safer for everyone. That mission has underpinned the company's evolution from a single-product manufacturer into a broader infection-control specialist serving hospitals and care homes internationally.

As DDC Dolphin enters its 36th year, the company says its focus remains unchanged from the problem Priest set out to solve in 1991: protecting healthcare workers and patients through practical, reliable engineering. The anniversary arrives as the company continues to expand its product range and international distribution network, building on a founding philosophy that Priest sums up simply: an engineer is someone who resolves problems.