WHEN business start-ups get a “No” from TV’s Dragons Den stars it usually means one thing – the end.

Try telling that to Atherton-based Discrete Heat Co Ltd and its founder and managing director Martin Wadsworth.

After being knocked back by the Dragons in 2008, he has steadily built a business from scratch, manufacturing an innovative skirting board that doubles as a radiator.

Now selling in more than 20 countries, the ThermaSkirt is installed as far afield as the Falkland Islands, Uruguay and even the frozen north Norway, as well as closer to home in Falkirk, Uxbridge and Norfolk.

Now, the company has secured the single biggest contract in its history – worth £5 million -with a national care home builder and, in turn, the NHS.

“We had been growing the business since we got the boot from Dragons Den, but with a general recession in the housing market, it had been steady rather than spectacular,” said Mr Wadsworth.

“Then we did an install for Dr Barzo Faris, a microbiologist at Manchester Royal Infirmary, and we discovered a whole new market place.”

Dr Faris recognised that replacing conventional radiators with a slim, sealed skirting board unit could reduce the risk of infections such as C.Difficile and MRSA which typically hide and breed in the warm, dusty spaces behind radiators.

He suggested the company developed the ThermaSkirt product further, to best suit the needs of a demanding healthcare sector, and especially the NHS.

The result was the “EasyClean” version of Discrete Heat’s popular residential skirting heating system.

Having been installed and tested at four NHS facilities, including Trafford General Hospital in Manchester, the EasyClean system has trumped other forms of heating, including radiators and underfloor heating.

The system has now gained national recognition by the NHS procurement program “ProCure 21”. This means the EasyClean system is now included on the specification for all P21 projects which have a combined annual spend of more than £2 billion.

The product has now also been specified by one of the country’s leading providers of assisted living apartments for persons with physical and learning disabilities, run by Altrincham based HB Villages.

With more than 400 one bed units planned every year for the next five years, it’s another major step forward for Discrete Heat.

“With confirmed orders with HB Villages and the projects with the NHS, we’re expecting well above £1 million a year for the next five years – and probably more,” said Mr Wadsworth, aged 50.

“The potential in healthcare, mental health and assisted living is huge and we have developed the perfect product for it – if only by accident.

“Sometimes you need to hang on in there and get lucky.”

Discrete heat employs 25 people at its factory at Victoria Works Industrial Estate, in Coal Pit Lane and has offices in Rostock, Germany, Perth and Melbourne, Australia and Poznan Poland.