City Healthcare Partnership – Our EO Story

Intro

Providing a wide range of high quality, safe health and care services in Hull, the East Riding of Yorkshire, Knowsley and St Helens, employing 2,500 colleagues. we are a 100% co-owned ‘for better profit’ organisation, investing profits into our services, colleagues and the communities we work in. As the effects of covid on communities and individuals were being revealed, we knew that a focus on employee well-being was essential to ensure we continued to serve communities.

Promoting Employee Wellbeing

In a year that saw the effects of Covid, our HR Team responded with the introduction of numerous initiatives to support and promote employee wellbeing.

There is an extensive range of benefits available designed to help staff achieve a high standard of personal health and wellbeing, underpinned by a comprehensive programme of events and dedicated networks to support staff in their journey back to work and optimum performance when needed.

We provide a wide range of high quality, safe health and care services in Hull, the East Riding of Yorkshire, Knowsley and St Helens. We are a co-owned ‘for better profit’ organisation, investing profits into our services, colleagues and the communities we work in.

We have been employee owned since the business was formed ten years ago and we are 100% employee owned.

As a provider of community-based health services, we have faced huge challenges over the past year in responding to the pandemic.  In addition to caring for patients with Covid-19 and supporting the wider system, we have had to alter the way we deliver care due to national guidance and local pressures.

Commissioners have called on us to deliver new services in new way at very high speed and we have responded quickly and imaginatively to these requests.

CHCP responded to the challenges quickly and precisely:

• We mobilised “hot sites” for Covid positive patients
• Re-deployed staff from less critical areas to work in areas of greatest need
• Established a mass vaccination centre which is now giving over 1,000 jabs a day and
• Developed an array of new digital/ telephone services to offer treatment to patients in a Covid safe way.

As a result of these changes, we have seen a reduction in our carbon footprint and improved efficiencies due to new ways of working and service delivery being introduced.

Pictured below: Chief Executive Andrew Burnell vaccinating at our mass vaccination centre at Hull City Hall.

Our EO Values

Our culture of working collaboratively and our “can do” attitude have contributed enormously to our response to the crisis. Colleagues have pulled together and worked in new ways, rising to the challenge and supporting the organisation to continue to deliver high quality safe services to our patients. As well as their day jobs, some colleagues have volunteered at the vaccination centre on days off to ensure as many people as possible are protected from the virus.

Our impact

Through our charity, City Health Care Partnership Foundation, we give extra support to the communities we work in by offering small grants to voluntary and community groups who are helping to improve local health and wellbeing. We also offer a Staff Sponsorship programme, where colleagues can apply for sponsorship when taking part in an activity to raise funds for their chosen charity.

Our recent Social Return on Investment audit showed a return of £69 for every £1 spent and our Friends and Family Test results show that around 96% of all respondents would recommend our services.

Our tenth annual colleague survey undertaken in 2020 shows that 9 in every 10 colleagues would recommend CHCP to friends and family if they needed care or treatment. A CHCP colleague quoted from the survey “I have received care from CHCP services on occasion and they have always remained professional, caring and compassionate to my needs. The service I work for provides the best care it possibly can.” Furthermore, 79% of CHCP colleagues were likely to recommend CHCP to friends and family as a place to work. A CHCP colleague quoted from the survey “The organisation genuinely values colleagues and their contributions to the organisation and ultimately to the local population we serve.”

Our Wellbeing

Our first Covid-19 response saw CHCP offer colleagues fully funded childcare, daily FAQs to provide clear and timely updates, bereavement support pack, OccWellbeing (in-house occupational health) listening line, emotional support resources and promotion and signposting to national initiatives, welfare calls and working from home support. 95% of colleagues felt CHCP communicated effectively throughout the pandemic and 85% of colleagues felt that the organisation kept them as safe as possible throughout the last 12 months.

Throughout the pandemic, we have ensured that all our planned events went ahead, but with a twist! We introduced our events virtually, which we hosted on Microsoft Teams. Events included our CEO Roadshows and Celebrating Excellence Staff Awards, which you can watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9opvnk1X-U&t=3s

The past year saw us launch our successful CHCP Lottery offering prizes every month with the additions of extra cash prizes up for grabs too! A monthly donation from the lottery is made to our charity arm whilst money generated from the scheme is allocated for staff wellbeing initiatives.

We have offered mental health support through our in-house occupational health service and this has been supported by our Let’s Talk Psychological Wellbeing service. On 23^rd  June 2020 we signed the Time to Change Employer Pledge, which demonstrated our commitment to our colleagues to change how we think and act about mental health at every level in the organisation. In addition to this, we offer our colleagues free suicide prevention training, and a Resilience Hub was launched with partners to provide support for colleagues who have experienced trauma and/or stress working through the Coronavirus pandemic.

Our Inclusion, Diversity and Equality Lead at CHCP also launched a number of staff network groups (e.g., BAME, LGBTQ+ colleagues and for those living with disabilities) to provide opportunities to ‘raise their voice’ and be involved in discussions and decision making which support the improvement of equality and health and wellbeing outcomes for the staff.  Staff from these groups supported us in creating a fun and interactive video on our FREDIE vision; you can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5l4TcIETnds

Moving forward, we have introduced flexible working, physical activity/weight loss support, mental health/resilience workshops, financial wellbeing, health and wellbeing conversations, improving workplace culture, appointed a wellbeing guardian, domestic violence support, support for carers and more.