BUPA Health Care Partnerships
Organisation Size: 250
Sector: Private Health Care
Organisation Location: London and North West
BUPA Health Care Partnerships recognised under Investors in People Standard in 2002; reviewed under the new Profile tool in 2005
“Profile gave us reassurance in many areas about what we were doing and confirmed for us where we needed to put in extra work.”
Dr Natalie-Jane Macdonald, Medical and Health Care Purchasing Director
The Organisation
BUPA was established over half a century ago with the objective of providing freedom of choice in healthcare. Since then, its services have grown from simply funding treatment to providing treatment and care, prevention and encouraging healthy lifestyles.
Its original business, and still its biggest, is health insurance in the UK. In fact more than half the country’s top companies are BUPA customers. It also runs hospitals - treating nearly a quarter of a million patients a year - and care homes as well as providing services such as childcare and health assessments. Although it operates on three continents and serves more than seven million customers, BUPA remains a ‘provident association’, meaning there are no shareholders and any profit it makes is reinvested.
BUPA Health Care Partnerships, a stand-alone unit of BUPA Insurance which deals directly with healthcare providers, first achieved the Investors in People Standard in 2002. When it was reviewed in 2005 the organisation opted to become one of the first companies to be assessed using the new Profile tool.
The Challenge
“Although we had already been recognised under the Standard,” says project manager Bob Jones, “following a reorganisation we had grown significantly in size – from 50 to 250 people. That meant we now occupied two offices – one in Staines and one in Salford Quays near Manchester.”
As a result of this change, when the organisation reached a point where its review of the Standard was due, Bob decided that a more thorough assessment was needed, to determine how well the business was working with the new parts of the organisation.
“We thought it would be a good idea to drill down to see how well we were integrating and whether we were achieving our objectives of operating to uniform standards across both sites,” explains Bob.
The Strategy
Investors in People Assessor Mike White spent a total of three days with the organisation conducting interviews with managers and staff, first in the Staines office and then up in Manchester.
“What might have been seen as intimidating turned into a very straight-forward and positive experience,” said Bob. “Mike put everyone at their ease.”
“Profile is a great way of really stretching targets and seeing how well an organisation is performing against the ten indicators of the Standard,” he explains, “from people development and equality of opportunity through to managerial support.”
Level 1 of Profile is the same as the Standard, but there are a further three levels that organisations can reach. This means you can assess exactly how well you are doing in each particular area. It also enables you to benchmark yourself against other similar organisations.
But for BUPA Health Care Partnerships the real value of Profile came from its ability to provide a comparison between different departments or divisions.
“The process gave us a real snapshot of how the now larger organisation was performing compared to where we were when we first achieved the Standard,” adds Bob.
The Result
“The Profile report was very comprehensive and in-depth,” says Bob. “We were expecting it to be quite tough in some areas, but in fact we did better than we imagined.” Overall the organisation scored higher than level 1 in all indicators, and reached level 4 in a total of five areas. And, according to Bob, the report gave them practical advice on where progress could be made.
“It gave us a clear idea about what we were doing right and at the same time showed us where we need to focus our efforts.
“For example, until now we have only offered coaching to senior people. The assessment showed us that it would be beneficial to extend this to the rest of the organisation.
“Another area for focus is our Measurement and Reporting process following on from individual or group training. Further thought is required in terms of assessing just how successful such training has been.
“The report also picked up on an aspect of our pay system that needed addressing by our Human Resources team.” Bob is keen to ensure that the process does not stop here and plans to put the organisation through a Profile assessment the next time a review is due.
“The reality is that business moves fast and our organisation is constantly changing,” he confirms. “Just because we are doing well at something now does not mean we shall be in the same position in a couple of years time.
“We will need to keep all these issues under detailed review on a regular basis.”