Spring 2023 Newsletter
Highlights for the Website Spring Edition:
CEO Update
Customer Satisfaction
Employee Recognition Awards Winners
Fundraising for Diabetes
CEO Update - Steven Pink
Thank you for taking time to read this latest edition of our newsletter. I am very pleased to report that as we cross over into the new financial year, we can look back on a number of key successes and some challenges which we have been able to address well. This puts us in a strong position as we begin the new financial year.
Successes
Our core South East London service has performed well against service level targets all through 2022/23. This is despite significant increases in patient volume – some of which were not originally planned. To give you an idea, on occasions we have seen year on year increases of 75%. That is huge. Through the hard work of the Operations Team, we have been able to stay on top of things and deliver phenomenal service levels against that backdrop. We are now piloting more structured clinical navigation and restructured rotas as we move forward. This will help us continue to deliver quality healthcare in the context of high demand.
Our new South West London service at St Helier and St Georges has continued to perform well – pretty much from day one on 1st June 2022. We have a new partner as the lead provider changed from Vocare to Practice Plus Group (PPG). We enjoy working with PPG and have quickly build a solid partnership. This is fundamental for good service delivery and new opportunities in future.
It is great to be working with the London Ambulance service under a new arrangement which offers GP consultations to support them in addressing phenomenal levels of patient demand in their 999 service. This has been a different kind of contract for us and LAS are a demanding but fair customer. Once again, our service delivery has performed well against quality measures and whilst there is an opportunity for us to deliver slightly higher service volumes, we have made a massive positive impact for them.
Challenges
It’s funny, these successes have also been at the root of some of our challenges. When we discontinued our South West London contract with Vocare, the shape of SELDOC changed. We became slightly smaller, but more complex with a larger number of smaller service agreements in place with our customers. Through this year, we have all learned a new way of working where we have had to be even faster and even more exact in how we intervene when something veers slightly off course. Nothing major, but a new skill for the whole team nonetheless. We have mastered this, although in the earlier days of 2022/23, we overcame a number of challenges which were part of the learning process for us.
Overall
Our net patient satisfaction scores have remained high as a function of the service quality we all work hard to deliver. Our clinical and non-clinical teams have pulled out the stops on many occasions to keep quality on track and I am hugely grateful for this. Our service level performance has been strong all year and I am pleased to report that our financial performance for the year will be slightly ahead of plan.
Before I finish, I would like to take a moment to talk about our new subsidiary company Verve Healthcare. We established Verve to provide workplace wellness solutions to companies and their employees. We decided to create a new brand as this business focuses on private sector customers, while the SELDOC brand focuses on NHS customers. The success which Verve brings will support us in delivering our NHS objectives and the values of Verve are closely aligned with our approach in SELDOC. For example “patient-first” is a key value in both parts of our organisation.
Having created the proposition and brand, we built new systems and Verve is now live and trading.
As a SELDOC employee, the benefits of Verve are available to you.
SELDOC is a customer of Verve.
The platform is easy to use and it takes just a few minutes for you to sign up complete some initial questions. All you need to do is open the email from Andre Osborne sent recently and register. Once you have given your responses, Verve will prompt you with any actions you may need to take to improve your own wellbeing. As you would expect, all information is confidential and personal to you. As an employer, I will only see anonymised patterns across the organisation. This helps us to see where me may need to take targeted action which could benefit everyone. Please do sign up and let us know what you think.
As ever, I will finish by thanking every last person in all of our teams. You are all amazing and you do jobs which can often be challenging in difficult circumstances. Every thing you do and how you do it is important. Thank you for all those times where you have taken personal responsibility for doing the right thing. It matters to the business, to our GP Members, but most of all to our patients. Well done and thank you.
Best wishes
Steven Pink
EMPLOYEE RECOGNITION AWARD WINNERS FOR March 2023
It gives me great pleasure to congratulate two exceptional members of our team for being the winners of this quarter's Employee Recognition Awards. The awards aim to recognize and celebrate employees who have shown outstanding performance and dedication to their work.
I am pleased to announce that the winners of the Employee Recognition Awards for this quarter are:
Rohan McKenzie – Shift Manager for SEL
Mirka LeGuen – Rota and On-Boarding Manager at Head office
Coming in at joint first, their nominees gave evidence of their hard work, commitment, and contribution to the success of the company, and they truly deserve this recognition.
The selection process was not an easy task, as we received numerous nominations for the award. We would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate the other 12 nominees for their outstanding work. Each nominee displayed a high level of dedication and commitment to their job, and they have all made significant contributions to our company's success.
We would like to acknowledge that three of the nominees were in a very close second place, and we appreciate their hard work and dedication to the company: Clare Garbutt (Rota), John Head (Driver) and Louis Taylor (IM&T). It is a testament to the quality of our team that the competition was so tight.
As an organization, we are fortunate to have such a dedicated and talented team. We would like to take this opportunity to express our gratitude to each one of you for your hard work and dedication to the company's goals. We believe that recognizing and celebrating employees' efforts is a vital part of maintaining a positive and productive work culture.
See below what the nominators said about the winners:
Rohan – “For always managing his shift and team well in very challenging circumstances and never complaining about the high demand in line with capacity we currently have, with no breaches on his shift either. A credit to the team.”
“Mirka has brought rota fill up to the internal SELDOC target of 98% on a sustained basis, despite winter pressures. She and her team have also taken on the management of clinician compliance and on boarding, with the result that in a short space of time our performance has gone from <90% on lots of requirements, to a clean sweep of green performance (>95%) for eight solid weeks. These are big, tangible successes.”
“Mirka, as a line manager is very supportive. Always contactable and had helped me settle into my new role in SELDOC.”
Customer Service Results
We are pleased to announce from our Clinical Governance Team that our Net Promoter Score (NPS)
has increased from 77.05% to 84.62%!
This is an excellent achievement, and it is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our staff.
Customer satisfaction is the cornerstone of any successful business, but it is particularly important in the healthcare industry. Patients are often at their most vulnerable when seeking medical care, so it's essential that they receive the highest level of service possible. We understand this, and our commitment to customer satisfaction is evident in every aspect of our operations.
This success is multifactorial and can be attributed to several factors, including increased rota fill, and extending the scope of patients we send surveys to. Our efforts to gather feedback from a broader patient population have helped us identify areas of improvement, and we are committed to continuing to do so.
We did experience a drop in our patient satisfaction scores in December 2022, which we attribute to the high demand on the health system due to the increased prevalence of Strep A, COVID, and flu. However, we are currently reviewing all our services to ensure that we are gathering feedback from each area to improve.
We would like to take this opportunity to share some of the compliments we have received from our patients. These are a testament to the quality of care and service that we provide at SELDOC:
“Very efficient and well-organised, as well as kind”
“Seen quickly, actually before my appointment time, which I really appreciated with a baby! Kind and caring doctor. Thank you”
“The doctor was very nice, explained everything. Took the time to make sure mum understood everything."
We want to extend our heartfelt thanks to all of you for your continued hard work and dedication to our patients. Together, we are making a real difference in people's lives.
RAISING FUNDS FOR DIABETES
Losing weight can be a challenging journey, but it can also be a life-changing experience. For one staff member, this Journey has inspired her to raise funds for a diabetes charity.
Rachel Kelly, SELDOC’s Rota and On-boarding Coordinator and mother of one, had struggled with her weight in the past. She decided over two years ago, with a friend, to attend a local swimming club and has been attending sessions twice weekly since then.
However, for Rachel, the weight loss was just the beginning. She wanted to use her experience to help others who were struggling with similar health issues and raise awareness about diabetes, which affects over 4 million people in the UK alone.
Rachel is using her love of swimming to undertake a swimming challenge to raise funds for a diabetes charity Swim22 2023 | Diabetes UK. Starting on March 22nd, Rachel will be swimming 22 miles over a 2-month period, which is equivalent to swimming the Channel Crossing. Her efforts have already gained support, and she has set a fundraising goal of £500 for the charity.
Please join us in helping Rachel achieve her target and donate here: https://swim22.diabetes.org.uk/fundraising/RachelKelly822#share-page
Rachel's dedication and commitment to the cause is truly inspiring. Her journey continues to achieve her desired weight and her subsequent efforts to raise funds for a diabetes charity is a testament to the power of determination and resilience. Her story is an inspiration to us all, and a reminder that with the right mind-set and support, we can achieve anything we set our minds to.
Thank you for taking a moment to read this information. We hope you found it interesting. We would love to hear from you if you are interested in what we do and would like to find out a little more. With very best wishes from the SELDOC Team
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