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Testimonials
Our customers always come first.
To find out more about how we help organisations like yours, see below for success stories, directly from our members.
With collaboration wonderful things can be achieved…
“It is the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.” Charles Darwin
Whether you follow and listen to visionaries like Simon Sinek or Charles Darwin, it is apparent that achieving real success, whether in the commercial world or the third sector, that this is dependent upon concerning yourself with the success of others and collaboration.
These values and aspirations were the building blocks of Hospice Quality Partnership’s founders and since 2014, HQP has worked across the Hospice network, as a collaborative procurement social enterprise to deliver efficiencies in both time, money and mitigate risk.
In collaboration with, Karyn Johnston, CEO of East Cheshire Hospice, both parties worked together to improve the Hospice’s sustainability and Karyn speaks to the benefits of true partnerships:
- “I’ve just secured gas supply with focus for 2022-2025, saving us £4k (£400 cheaper than the incumbent). Very happy with the service so far. Focus has never let me down to date!”
Alice Round, Procurement Manager - “Haven House Children’s Hospice has been a member of Hospice Quality Partnership since its inception. Through supplier partnerships secured by HQP, we have saved more than our membership fee every year since and in 2018/9 alone saved £12k against comparable quotes on work to compartmentalise our loft space for fire reasons, work that was subsequently carried out to very high quality and on time. We would encourage other hospices to join, not least as the more that join, the greater the purchasing power that HQP can wield.”
Mike Palfreman, Chief Executive, Haven House Children’s Hospice - “Treetops Hospice moved to PIB Insurance Brokers in 2008 and immediately made significant savings on our insurance premiums. Since then we have received an exemplary service and the premiums paid have remained at a very competitive level. When a claim has been made it has been dealt with efficiently and funds arising have been received promptly. I would recommend PIB Insurance Brokers to any Hospice”
Rebecca Bostock - Treetops Hospice - “I want to say how impressed I am with Andrew Rumsey, who is our account manager at Focus. He is so responsive to emails and always helpful. It’s all too easy to complain when things don’t go to plan so I wanted to flag this up as he really does give great service.”
Cheryl Webster, Support Services Manager, Treetops Hospice Care - “I Want Great Care works really well. They do all the number crunching which saves time and costs. It is easy to underestimate the work involved and so unit saving is helpful. It is fully transparent and can show results”
Jane Naismith, St Joseph’s Hospice -
"As an operational manager IWGC has proven to be very useful in relation to managing feedback from our patients and families – having the ability to individualise the services that are reported on through the unique codes also provides the ability to report to the teams and give feedback to our teams directly.
To create new services is very easy and to generate new codes and the paper feedback forms again is very simple. Our users of the services have also reported back to us that they find inputting their feedback electronically very straightforward. In relation to using the data generated and reporting these through our contracts.
We are able to use the data to report within our quality reporting through our CCGs contracts and report through our own governance structures in Dorothy House. Our trustees and Executive Team certainly have the information regularly reported to them for the quality reporting. We also display the feedback and our responses on our inpatient unit.”
Karen Tudge, Head of Day Services, Dorothy House Hospice Care - “I was very pleased with the attitude of your tradesmen and the way the work was carried out. They were courteous to our staff & users and reduced our operational disturbance to a minimum. Please convey my thanks to them. I look forward to working with your team on future suitable projects.”
Alan Johnson, Isabel Hospice - "It is very important that our people understand how much we invest in their development. We present the training data annually to the organisation and the details that are held in Ciphr make developing the presentation simple to achieve. We can show trends graphically to make the information easy to digest for everyone. Post training evaluation questionnaires provide us with valuable feedback from candidates so that we can revise our programmes where necessary.“
Katrina Williams, United Welsh - "Mary Stevens Hospice has been arranging their insurance cover through PIB Insurance Brokers (part of the PIB Group) since 2016. We have also received added benefits as they are also the HQP recommended insurance broker. One of the benefits that our staff regularly take advantage of is the Discount Portal – a perk we receive at no cost but one that offers staff large savings in many areas.
With limited funds available we often have to look for what is the cheapest (e.g. the paper we use in our copiers) but with insurance, even though cost is a major consideration we also have to look closely at quality and the level of service provided. With the insurance we have arranged through PIB, we not only have it at a very favourable premium, but we also get an outstanding quality of service. Whilst we have had this cover we have gone through various major changes; a £3.5M rebuild of our Day Services Unit, the COVID-19 Pandemic, redundancies, etc. Many times we have had to make urgent enquiries and ask for very specific insurance guidance and at every single time the advice we have received has been timely, easy to understand and in hindsight I can say correct.
We feel that we are not simply ‘another customer’ but it works as more like a partnership with the Hospice and PIB. They understand us, we understand them, and the working relationship is excellent. So, in summary, we believe we made the right decision to move our insurance needs over to PIB, we get the cover at a good price, all our staff benefit by access to the Discount Portal and have every faith in them when we need advice or assistance. What more could we ask for!”
Gerry Crow, Mary Stevens Hospice -
“Since St Helena Hospice joined the Hospice Quality Partnership (HQP) and started actively using the framework agreements on offer we have saved well over £30,000 in direct savings alone. Whilst in that time we have managed to introduce new services and grow our income I can think of nothing else we have done that has actually improved our value for money and increased quality of service at the same time in such a straightforward and painless way.
Every time we have switched supplier to HQP the process has been smooth and easy.
Moving to a new energy provider hasn’t only delivered a direct financial benefit it has also reduced enormously the number of invoices we receive freeing valuable administrative time in both our Estates and Finance teams to focus on other priorities. We have also been encouraged to consider our energy efficiency more closely and our deriving further benefit from taking on board the advice on offer from our new supplier.
Our new insurance provider has not only saved us money but also increased the level of cover we have in the event of a future claim or problem. They have worked with us to improve our risk management processes which has provided greater assurance to our Board. We are also currently working with them to develop business continuity plans as an added value extra service that our previous supplier didn’t offer. Their expertise and support is helping us improve our efficiency and safety as well as our bottom line.
If you’re a partner of HQP but have yet to ensure the ‘buyers’ in your hospice are using the great deals on offer then what are you waiting for!”
Mark Jarman-Howe, Chief Executive, St Helena Hospice - “Focus Energy made the process seamless, they put together a compelling cost proposal with recommended options, which meant I had confidence that the recommendations were thoroughly researched so we could make the right choice for the DMH business. We made some immediate financial savings and will continue to do so over the next few years, along with time saved as the contract end dates now line up making our administrative process quicker and easier”.
Kenneth Snell, Head of Facilities Management - “Countrywide have been one of the most proactive and professional suppliers during the recent pandemic. They maintained payment by account, while most others needed payment by credit card at the time of ordering, and delivered all orders within 1-2 days in full and without exception. Our Account Manager, Helen Kelly, has been quick to respond to any questions put to her and has helped to make the ordering process fast and efficient by stating what items were in stock or when they were due back in stock. They managed the distribution of the pandemic stock to allow all hospices to get a sufficient amount of stock when required rather than making empty promises and continually running out of stock. I believe the relationship with HQP and Countrywise has been hugely beneficial to Sue Ryder.”
David White, Head of Procurement and Purchase Ledger, Sue Ryder