INTEGRATED REPORT 2019
Sustainability – International |
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| We are committed to operating a sustainable business and our focus incorporates social, environmental and financial stability across our business. As with our southern African business, we aim to be a responsible corporate citizen underpinned by effective engagements with our various stakeholders. |
| OUR 2019 PRIORITIES | OUR PROGRESS | |
Talent
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Introduced common performance management and reward principles for all senior managers, including:
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Continue to nurture talent and implement succession strategies |
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Continue to grow university partnerships in the UK, Ireland and Europe |
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Drive further collaboration and integration across the broader Group – led by the Group executive team |
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Global integration initiative |
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| OUR 2020 PRIORITIES |
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Alliance Medical
Human capital
We aspire to be an employer of choice within the regions where we operate to ensure that we remain competitive within local labour markets and provide high-quality clinical services for our patients. It is therefore imperative that we recruit, deploy, retain and develop high-quality, professional teams who are passionate about delivering safe and caring services to our patients.
Life Healthcare's approach to HR is multi-tiered, which reflects the global nature of our business. Our operations stretch across multiple geographies, and we manage our human capital from a local perspective. Core HR frameworks are agreed upon at a Group level, and then implemented across all geographies according to local factors and requirements, such as legislation, local market conditions and local employment needs.
Alliance Medical has 2 040 employees (2018: 2 003), of which 692 are clinical (2018: 669) and 1 348 non-clinical (2018: 1 334). Alliance Medical also engages with 969 self-employed colleagues (2018: 892), mainly in Italy, where we operate a different clinical delivery model.
We record diversity statistics according to local legislation. In the UK and Ireland, information on our employee diversity is reported on an annual basis. A total of 65% of Alliance Medical's workforce are women.
Recruiting suitably qualified staff remain a challenge for the business, which inevitably leads to the appointment of temporary employees. Unfortunately, this is both costlier and less effective than appointing permanent team members. Addressing and optimising the mix of permanent and contract staff continues to be an area of focus for Alliance Medical.
Our UK apprenticeship programme provides our employees with the opportunity to complete programmes ranging from degree-level management qualifications, through to clinical administration qualifications. Due to the shortage of radiographer skills in the UK and Ireland, we ensure we retain this scarce resource by investing in a range of reward, development, recruitment and cultural initiatives.
Since the UK referendum result on Brexit, recruitment of radiographers from within the EU into the UK has reduced significantly. This further compounds the pressure placed on recruitment activities within the UK. We have an integrated resourcing strategy in place, and we focus on recruiting radiographers at every stage of their careers. Following the launch of our apprenticeship schemes from clinical assistants to master level radiographers, the number of colleagues enrolled in this programme increased from 15 as at September 2018 to 32 as at September 2019. We continue to strengthen our partnerships with universities to provide elective and structured placements in the UK. At the moment, we have 11 partnerships in place. Alliance Medical has also launched its clinical graduate programme during the prior year in the UK which is proving its success in 2019.
Employee headcount
| Total | Clinical | Non-clinical | Self-employed | ||||||||||||||
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| Region | 2019 | 2018 | 2019 | 2018 | 2019 | 2018 | 2019 | 2018 | |||||||||
| UK | 973 | 947 | 414 | 404 | 559 | 543 | 14 | 6 | |||||||||
| Italy | 579 | 581 | 88 | 91 | 491 | 490 | 942 | 872 | |||||||||
| Ireland | 272 | 262 | 115 | 109 | 157 | 153 | 1 | 0 | |||||||||
| Northern Europe and radiopharmacy | 174 | 171 | 43 | 33 | 131 | 138 | 10 | 12 | |||||||||
| Spain | 42 | 42 | 32 | 32 | 10 | 10 | 2 | 2 | |||||||||
| Total | 2 040 | 2 003 | 692 | 669 | 1 348 | 1334 | 969 | 892 | |||||||||
Alliance Medical has a comprehensive approach to the continuous professional development (CPD) of our employees, who attend both mandatory and non-mandatory training programmes. These initiatives are informed by internal and regulatory requirements of each region. Furthermore, we focus on developing our employee's expertise in different modalities to support employee retention, and provide them with secondment opportunities.
Our university partnership model in the UK was further developed during the year, with the continued growth of elective placement opportunities and graduate radiographer appointments. We tailor the content of each partnership to the respective universities, which includes placement programmes for undergraduate and postgraduate radiography students, the provision of lecturing support, interview skills training, and graduate radiographer opportunities. Pleasingly, in June, Alliance Medical was named Imaging Provider of the Year at the Health Investor Awards, recognising the work we do to develop and enhance the radiology workforce.
In 2018, we introduced a global Life Healthcare HR committee, comprising representation from all our geographies. The committee facilitated multiple global HR initiatives during the year, including:
- developing a global code of conduct, which we have implemented across the Group. The code defines the goals and principles which underpin the Group's shared commitment to the highest standards of integrity and ethical conduct;
- introducing a global approach to performance management and remuneration for all senior executives and senior management, including a performance review framework and consistent short and long-term incentive structures and targets. This will ensure that our senior team members are continuously incentivised to achieve common objectives throughout our business;
- rolling out a global employee engagement survey across all countries within the Group. This supports our goal of building a robust company culture, and further enables us to deepen our cultural understanding across each region; and
- implementing a global approach to senior executive succession, talent and critical role management across all countries within the business, which will enable us to understand and benefit from the diversity of our international senior management teams.
In Italy, we further strengthened our head office team to support business growth. We also appointed a Head of Commercial, who will be responsible for developing and implementing our commercial strategy throughout Alliance Medical. In the UK, we strengthened our succession planning by promoting three senior managers to executive committee roles.
Health and safety
The health and safety of our employees are of critical importance, and ensuring a safe and healthy working environment is a collaborative effort. Third-party consultants assist us, where appropriate, and provide advice and guidance to the business. We consider independent advice regarding health and safety laws and seek methods to consistently improve Alliance Medical's health and safety policies and procedures.
To promote a positive and supportive working environment, we continuously invest in modern, safe and appropriate imaging facilities and equipment. In addition, we adhere to structured governance models covering topics such as clinical quality, risk, health and safety and training. Our health and safety policies comply with all applicable health and safety legislation, including the UK Health and Safety at Work Act of 1974 and the UK Health and Social Care Act of 2008. We also adhere to legislation that governs video display usage and eye tests, and continuously monitor possible radiation exposure for radiology employees. Alliance Medical's health and safety committee ensures that each operation complies with the relevant laws and regulations.
To ensure we embed a culture of health and safety throughout the business, our employees attend mandatory training sessions. In the UK, the required online training for certain aspects of health and safety includes manual handling and fire risk. During the year, we also introduced IOSH Managing Safely accredited courses, which provide frontline management with practical health and safety management skills and understanding.
Stakeholder engagement
Our business is built on the strength of our relationships with our stakeholders. Our relationships are maintained by our in-country teams, who manage their engagements with relevant stakeholders at a local level.
We also manage stakeholder relationships on a Group-wide basis, where needed. An example of this is the Alliance Medical-led Molecular Imaging Collaborative Network, formed in 2015 to facilitate a partnership between us, the Christie, NHS hospitals, patient representatives, academic centres, charities and commissioners. The partnership has the shared purpose of improving cancer survival rates above 54% by 2025, and is widely acknowledged as an example of how the independent sector can support the future of the NHS.
We consider the top concerns and expectations of our external stakeholders and make every effort to address these. Based on our stakeholder engagements, the following are matters of concern:
- Alliance Medical must consistently strive to improve its service excellence, providing innovative imaging solutions to its patients to ensure high-quality care
- Operations should comply with the applicable legal, regulatory, and statutory requirements of the countries in which we operate
- We should offer our patients cost-effective services
- Alliance Medical must provide timeous access to scanning services, at a time requested by the patient
For more information refer to how we created value for our stakeholders.
Electricity, water and waste
The use of natural capital has an unavoidable effect on the greater health of society and, therefore, we are cognisant of the impact our business has on the environment in which we operate.
Key to effectively managing our electricity performance is ensuring we capture and record accurate consumption data. In the UK, Alliance Medical's energy is supplied through a mix of direct supply from utility companies, and indirect supply through third parties such as the NHS trusts and other host sites, who typically invoice for electricity support as part of consolidated service charges.
The UK is required to submit a four-yearly ESOC Energy Consumption Report in December 2019, which will raise the visibility of energy usage across all UK sites, irrespective of supply channel. Furthermore, the report will also recommend practical changes to improve our energy consumption and, consequently, our environmental footprint.
Waste is managed in line with international waste disposal guidelines and according to local legislation in each of our markets. Alliance Medical is particularly exposed to radioactive waste, which we take great care to contain. In addition to this, we also manage the control and disposal of general, infectious and hazardous medical waste.
Poland
Human capital
We believe that the sustainability of our business depends on attracting and retaining the right people. We co-operate with top medical specialists to provide the highest quality of healthcare to our patients. Since we operate in an increasingly competitive environment, we monitor employment conditions and working environments to ensure we position ourselves as an employer of choice.
Scanmed employs 3 646 employees and contractors (2018: 3 523), 2 020 of whom are on permanent contracts (2018: 2 095).
Treating our employees equally and promoting diversity is of fundamental importance. Polish law has strict limitations on the type of employee data that can be processed by an employer, which limits our ability to collect data regarding the race or ethnicity of our workforce. However, Scanmed actively encourages diversity among its teams and, in 2019, updated its anti-discrimination policies. We also reviewed and updated our HR policies and internal regulations to align with best practice and regulatory requirements, particularly in light of increased data protection regulations and changes to the Polish labour code.
We consistently develop our employees to ensure we have a professional staff complement with the right qualifications, skills and expertise. In 2019, we particularly focused on improving our employees' soft skills, including their customer and patient service. Both clinical and non-clinical employees participated in various training activities and workshops, with outpatient employees receiving 22 training days. Importantly, we also launched an e-learning platform which provided our employees access to a suite of training activities and programmes. The training content was developed by our employees to ensure it is relevant to our business. Going forward, this platform will be expanded and will provide an essential source of knowledge and information management.
During the year, Scanmed explored opportunities to enhance its brand as an employer of choice. To this end, we participated in job fairs organised by Warsaw University. We are also co-operating with academic career centres to reach out to university graduates and other students who would like to start their professional career in the healthcare environment.
In continuing with our drive of redesigning our remuneration and reward scheme, in 2019 we introduced senior management reward principles, which include decision-making hierarchies, grading structures, as well as short and long-term incentive plans. In addition, new incentive schemes for our sales and customer service teams were introduced to support business development initiatives. Going forward, we will focus on redesigning our remuneration frameworks to reflect external benchmarking. This will structure and define the reward structure for roles throughout Scanmed.
Scanmed also continued its recruitment drive to fill senior and middle management positions to increase the management capabilities of the team, with many critical senior roles filled during the year. The process will continue into 2020, and extend beyond Poland to support the growth of medical specialisations.
Health and safety
Scanmed strives to continuously improve the health and safety of its employees. We systematically monitor our working environments to ensure it is up to standard; and implement modern technical and organisational solutions to support the well-being of our employees. During the year, we increased the frequency of internal audits and introduced a new inspection plan.
Our employees also undergo health and safety training, which is designed to promote a culture of safety among the team. This, in turn, allows us to maintain our safety standards and identify ongoing actions to increase safety in our workplace aimed at preventing accidents and near misses.
Stakeholder engagement
Scanmed proactively builds and develops relationships with public and private stakeholders, including local authorities and organisations. The majority of our business is based on public funding, and it is therefore imperative that our management team maintains constant relationships with local NFZ directors. We do this through various initiatives and development projects and by actively promoting health prevention activities. We also cultivate strong relationships with our local communities, governments and public hospitals in the cities where Scanmed operates.
During the year, we aimed to increase awareness of the importance of health among our local communities. Therefore, we provided a mobile ophthalmic point during local events, where we offered cataract diagnoses to members of the community. In cooperation with the NFZ, we also implemented various diagnostic programmes in our local communities, such as POZ Plus, POZ Quality, a cardiovascular disease prevention programme, and programmes specifically aimed at women's health.
In co-operation with local and central NFZ branches, Scanmed engaged in leading public initiatives related to planned changes in primary healthcare (PHC). We believe that our participation in key PHC pilot programmes will create long-term value for the business.
As part of our community social responsibility (CSI) engagements, we continued to support the Mam Marzenie Foundation, a non-governmental organisation dedicated to fulfilling the personal dreams of terminally ill children. We also offered support to the Mimo Wszystko Foundation, a public benefit organisation dedicated to assisting adults with intellectual disabilities.
During the year, we continued our partnership with the Leslaw A. Paga Foundation, an educational support organisation aimed at talented young medical students in Poland. This year, over 600 students attended the sixth edition of the leadership programme for health care.
For more information refer to how we created value for our stakeholders
Electricity, water and waste
Our electricity consumption decreased 2.4% to 5.9 million kWh in 2019. New laws introducing a public grant balancing the energy costs increase versus 2018 have been introduced and Scanmed is in the process of applying for a refund. Our focus remains on initiatives aimed at reducing our consumption of electricity.
Scanmed's water consumption levels reduced from 2018, with a decrease of 26.2% from 43 536 kl /PPD to 32 124 kl/PPD in 2019. We are committed to reducing our water usage and continue to explore opportunities to reduce our consumption.
During the year, changes were made to the legal requirements of managing and disposing of medical waste. We remain committed to complying with all legal requirements, ensuring that we entrench all changes throughout our business.
We are committed to operating a sustainable business and our focus incorporates social, environmental and financial stability across our business. As with our southern African business, we aim to be a responsible corporate citizen underpinned by effective engagements with our various stakeholders.