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Success Stories

Success Stories & 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.

Insurance
PIB Insurance Brokers & St Mary Stevens Hospice
October 2021

  • “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
  • Timely, easy to understand and correct advice
  • Outstanding quality of service & working relationship

With limited funds available, cost is a major consideration. So when Mary Stevens Hospice were looking for an insurance provider; they wanted to deal with a company where they could be secure in the knowledge that they were getting the most cost-effective insurance that provided them with the quality of insurance products and a great level of service. 

As an HQP supplier partner, the team at Mary Stevens were reassured that PIB Insurance Brokers had already been assessed and approved as part of the HQP procurement process. That agreement means that HQP members receive a favourable premium and added benefits but most importantly PIB Insurance Brokers have a great reputation for quality of service with over 20 years experience, providing insurance specifically in the care sector.  

One of the added benefits that has proved popular with employees is the free staff and volunteer discount shopping portal which offers savings in many areas that make a real difference to the team. The employees at Mary Stevens are regular users of the portal which demonstrates its value and popularity. 

Gerry Crow, Director of Operations and Support at Mary Stevens Hospice commented “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 Mary Stevens have had cover with PIB Insurance Brokers, they have gone through some major changes; a £3.5M rebuild of the Day Services Unit, the COVID-19 pandemic and redundancies. On several occasions, they have had to make urgent enquiries and ask for very specific insurance guidance.   

Gerry continues “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.”  

HR SYSTEMS
CIPHR & Isabel Hospice
July 2021

  • “The main benefit that we have found from having CIPHR has been accurate management information that is used at board level. We would have struggled to get any meaningful data before. Also, customer service has been superb, I couldn’t recommend my account manager enough.” Sue Balcombe, Head of Human Resources
  • HR staff free to work on strategic tasks
  • Quick positive user acceptance

Isabel Hospice was looking for help for their HR function to manage and understand the data from 120 work patterns for a workforce of around 200 people and 1,000 volunteers. A change that would increase the services HR delivered, enabling it to add real value to the organisation.

Head of Human Resources, Sue Balcombe comments, “We were very conscious that we had lots of data in lots of places and its accuracy was questionable. In discussion with the CEO we wanted HR to have HR as the owner of the data so that we could help the managers do their roles with accurate management information. That meant that accurate data had to be our starting point.”

CIPHR specialise in managing the complexities of HR data through a SaaS approach. As an HQP supplier partner, they have met the stringent procurement requirements to deliver services to the care sector and our Hospice member organisations. As members, Isabel Hospice were able to approach them through the HQP framework which meant they were able to manage their budget more effectively.

Working with CIPHR to review their processes, Isabel Hospice now enjoys very good functionality from its HR system. Quick, positive user acceptance has demonstrated how easy the system is to use with Hospice staff now empowered to amend personal information, own their own documents and receive relevant and timely notifications. This means that HR are free to work on more strategic tasks and managers are able to deal with their team more effectively.

The transition to the new system was fully supported by the CIPHR Service Desk who are hugely responsive with the project manager and account manager being instrumental in getting resolution to any issues raised.

Isabel Hospice have found the right company to provide them with a fully configured system that meets their bespoke, complex requirements.

IT MANAGED SERVICES
CT Technology & Ashgate Hospicecare
June 2021

  • “We enlisted the services of CT to help us ensure technology provided the foundations we need to support our long-term future goals. They continue to deliver high levels of customer service at all times and we are confident that should any problems arise they are addressed swiftly and effectively.”
    - Andy Croydon, Head of IT Services at Ashgate Hospicecare
  • The number of IT tickets raised reduced by 60%
  • Staff satisfaction with the new IT systems, better efficiency and speed.

Ashgate Hospicecare needed a company to provide them with a safe, secure system that would reduce both frustrations being experienced by their teams and high volumes of calls and tickets raised to the IT service desk. It needed to be accessed both onsite and remotely to enable staff to access the clinical system to update patient records working from home or when visiting patients.

Their existing Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) platform was hosted onsite, on one single server; a risk as it was a single point of failure which could cause downtime and potential loss of data. It also meant that the hospice team had to wait until they were back at Ashgate to update any patient information.

As HQP members Ashgate had exclusive access to the IT Managed Services framework and contacted HQP supplier partner, CT Technology.

CT recommended a VDI platform with enhanced security measures, placed in a cloud environment on multiple servers, to remove single points of failure and provide a more resilient and consistently reliable user experience. This solution also offered financial benefit as it was set up on a monthly payment scheme, reducing Ashgate’s capital expenditure and giving flexibility to easily scale up and increase the capacity for more users to work remotely.

Ashgate Hospicecare found a reduction of almost 60% of tickets raised to the IT service desk, with VDI specific tickets reduced by up to 90%. This allows the IT team to proactively focus on new projects to meet the Hospice goals and objectives. The staff at Ashgate have commented on the improved speed of the new platform and how faster access is enabling them to work more efficiently.

UTILITIES
Haven House Hospice and Focus Energy

  • I have been very impressed with their professionalism and high standards of customer service. We have developed an excellent working partnership with Focus and I would absolutely recommend them.
    - Liz Cody, Haven House Hospice
  • Cost reduction of 21% on gas expenditure
  • Saving in excess of £6900

Haven House Hospice were looking to simplify their contracts and invoicing. They wanted to change the multiple energy supply contracts they had in place to have one common end date and at the same time achieve cost reductions. They thought this would be impossible as it was something that too complicated to resolve.

As Focus Group are an HQP Partner, the team at Haven House were reassured they were dealing with a trusted supplier, knowing that all the due diligence and checks had already been completed by HQP’s procurement experts.

Since working with Focus Energy, all the contracts have been brought into one common end date and they’ve benefited from a cost reduction of 21% on their gas expenditure, providing them with a saving in excess of £6900 across the term. Furthermore, Focus Energy were able to secure further reductions on their electricity supplies, on some very competitive historical pricing.

As part of the ongoing account management, the team at Focus Energy have been able to review various billing issues that ensure they are paying the correct level of VAT and not unnecessarily overpaying.

RETAIL POS SYSTEMS
St Helena Hospice and Wil-U

  • “It really was plug in and go, just requiring a phone call to Wil-U for an access code to make each system live. Staff and volunteers didn’t require training. The POS is very self-explanatory even for those volunteers that have never worked in a retail setting previously.”
    - Karen Stokes, Area Manager at St Helena Hospice
  • Barcodes include gift aid information which has increased the money we raise
  • Simple layout and in-depth reporting

When charity shops are looking at introducing a new POS system, there are a lot of important things to consider. There’s cost, functionality, the time it takes to train staff and volunteers… also whether the system will grow with the charity in the future.

After receiving demos from 3 other providers, St Helena Hospice felt that the simplicity of the Wil-U layout and the in-depth reporting suited staff and volunteers as well as the retail management team.

The Wil-U Control Centre is included with Wil-U modules at no extra charge. You can see real-time sales reports and view your Donor Directory all in simple, easy-to-use software that can be accessed anywhere, any time, on any device. Management can configure access permissions to decide who can see certain information.

Seeing that Wil-U are the only POS and Digital Gift Aid solution approved by HQP gave St Helena Hospice the additional reassurance to go forward with the process and they were delighted at the quick and easy installation.

Since signing up to Wil-U with POS, Digital Gift Aid and Gift Aid Processing across all stores, St Helena Hospice has seen an uplift in Gift Aid figures and is anticipating much larger claims going forward.

When asked whether Wil-U had made things easier for St Helena Hospice, Karen Stokes replied “Yes. The main reason being that all items are barcoded which speeds up the process at the till for customers and limits till input error by volunteers because the category, Gift Aid number (if there is one), and price is all embedded to the barcode.”

More Success Stories from our Members

  • “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’m realising this is going to completely revolutionise the whole training system at Thames Hospice, not just e-learning but managing our face-to-face learning for clinical staff and our clinical competency work. You can imagine the amount of work all of that produces, but we can automate it all on Relias.”
    Danielle Maisey, Education Data and Administration Manager, Thames Hospice

  • “As a Hospice we had been looking into different e-learning platforms for mandatory training for a while and struggled to find something that both educationally and financially met our needs. It wasn’t until we were introduced to Relias that we felt sure about a platform which would meet these. Relias offers an incredibly flexible platform which meets the needs of not only employees but also volunteers.

    We were instantly impressed by the system itself which is user friendly and intuitive to use. A blended learning approach is adopted and particularly the use of audio and video is appealing. The content of the modules is up to date, regularly reviewed and, where we felt the content wasn’t meeting our needs entirely, this was easily addressed or we were given the option to add some of our own learning materials.

    The platform is much more than just a virtual learning system for mandatory training, it has built in capabilities to add your own policies and procedures. A library of additional modules is available and again we found this of huge benefit for continuous professional development purposes. Equally, employees found it really useful for revalidation purposes as everybody has their own dashboard which allows for any other learning and training records to be added.

    We were fully supported by the team at Relias with the initial set up and within a matter of weeks, with their help, all our historical data and records were added onto the system. The customer service is second to none and incredibly responsive and helpful. It is clear that at Relias they take pride in their relationships with their customers. We have regular contact with Relias and they have been supporting us with fine tuning the capabilities on the system and ensuring that we maximise its use.”
    Maaike Vandeweghe, Greenwich & Bexley Community Hospice

  • “Sue Ryder selected Core Facilities after an exhaustive tender process as we felt them to be the best fit, most adaptable and cost effective supplier for our needs. They have proved themselves to be highly professional, reliable and knowledgeable in all their work so far, which included visiting all 450 Sue Ryder locations and creating a reliable asset list at each site. They have also been very agile in helping with the reopening of the shops, checking all sites were in a position to open as well as installing perspex guards at all sites”.
    David White, Head Of Procurement for Sue Ryder
  • “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
  • "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
  • “Countrywise 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

HQP was founded by a number of the UK’s leading hospices in 2014 and provides access to exclusive supplier agreements, designed to reduce costs, deliver quality improvements and support sustainable services.