Staff Update
April 2024

A period of transformation.

SW Healthcare is now Vertis Health.

Over a decade after our inception, we’re retiring the SW Healthcare corporate identity—and introducing our new brand, Vertis Health.

We worked with our shareholders and board of directors to decide on a name that fit both who we were, and what we wanted to achieve. We also wanted it to be reflective of both past and future, and position us as an organisation integral to the Worcestershire area.

“Vertis,” our Clinical Directors discovered, was a Roman settlement in Worcestershire, and the word means unity and togetherness - both things we want our federation to stand for.

And by simplifying our core brand proposition, we've been able to make our sub-brands more cohesive - allowing us to prepare for our planned launch into new, revenue-focused services which we hope will provide us better opportunities to support our PCNs over the coming years.

The dual strands of the logo also help to reflect the two types of work we do - in keeping with the way our federation has changed over the last few years. Because it's no longer enough for us to simply manage NHS contracts on behalf of PCNs. Put simply, that kind of work isn't there, because NHS funding is stretched too thin.

So now, we're a business of two halves. We manage those contracts at scale, and we provide that PCN support - but we also operate on a revenue generation model, through innovative business areas like Workforce and Remedy that keep funding out of the private sector and in the local NHS, where it belongs.

And that’s not all that’s changing.

Our rebrand follows a significant Business Transformation Programme here at Vertis over the last eight weeks, ahead of our rebrand - including an internal restructure, and a complete overhaul of the way we approach every one of our existing projects to make sure we’re working in the most effective ways for our members and partners.

This has been a company-wide project - with teams across Operations, HR, Finance, Communications and, of course, Clinical Leadership, working together to identify new ways of working that break our staff out of silos, and into a more flexible, collaborative attitude.

Which connects with our overall approach.

Our aim as Vertis is to be more collaborative, more responsive, and more open - and we’ve already been grateful for the support of colleagues across our local ICS, including and especially our members, as they’ve helped us to develop new ways of working that really serve these goals.

With that in mind, we wanted to provide our staff with a detailed update on what’s been going on behind the scenes as we transition into our new identity.

So here’s an insight into our last few months. We hope you’ll enjoy our new look newsletter - and look forward to future editions coming soon.

Your Health.

Starting from scratch.

Your Health has been through a period of significant transition—with the departure of a few members of our previous team, and some operational issues identified in the running of the project. As such, our CEO, Lead Nurse, and Head of Operations worked closely with stakeholders at the ICB and Worcestershire County Council to develop new ways of working that make Your Health a sustainable service for the long-term.

This has, however, resulted in an enormous turnaround in client satisfaction from HWICB and Worcestershire County Council, with our most recent meeting resulting in excellent feedback on the significant changes made in a short period of time.

We’ve welcomed in several new members of the team, including a fantastic group of Band 4s who’ll be working out and about across Worcestershire over the coming months—so make sure you say hi if you see them in our lovely van.

We also want to say a particular thanks the team at Worcester City PCN, who've helped us test out a new way of working more closely with PCNs--not without the occasional speedbump(!)--with the aim of delivering a more integrated service over the coming year.

Easier access for PCNs.

This includes a new Direct Booking system, which will allow local venues, community organisations, and of course, PCNs, to directly request a visit from one of the Your Health vans.

This online Booking System will be directly linked with our new calendar and staff scheduling system—meaning that bookings requested are immediately added to the calendar for our team to accept or suggest an alternative date, depending on their availability.

This calendar, in turn, will soon link to an Outlook calendar which will be visible to vetted stakeholders—including PCNs, the ICB, and Worcestershire County Council—allow for better transparency and support PCNs who would like to promote the vans in their area, or send their own staff along to Your Health events.

This new process will remove a number of customer frustrations in the workings of the YH programme—as well as significantly reducing internal time costs associated with low-return processes, such as data entry, cross-departmental “sense checks” and of course, unnecessary emails... Making our federation more efficient, and a more rewarding place to work—because less time doing admin means more time spent doing what matters.

This is not the only change we have made, but it is perhaps the best example of the way we are approaching all aspects of our business in 2024-5: reviewing every process with fresh eyes and a new approach.

And we're already seeing results. By 3rd April, we'd already planned more clinics than in March alone--showing this new strategy is a vast improvement on our previous approach. So while we're still working out the last of the kinks, we're hopeful Your Health will become a real asset to practices across Worcestershire.

Workforce.

A focus on excellence.

We've spent April undergoing a significant compliance review on our existing Workforce bank—because with great plans to develop our agency offering, we want to make sure our offering is exceptional from the outset. Our sense is, after all, that reputation here will be critical to our success, and with a number of potential revenue-generating opportunities identified, we have opted to complete a full review of the operational procedures and compliance status of every staff member working in Workforce before we begin the process of going to market.

We've also identified where some aspects of our existing workload can be outsourced to our existing supply chain, delivering more cost savings for our members--and allowing us to work more efficiently again, playing to the strengths of our team and minimising the "low-return" aspects of their workload.

From mid-May, we'll be beginning a significant recruitment drive to fill the existing gaps in our Workforce pool--and so, we'll be looking to our members to tell us where we can add to our book... And offering even more opportunities for members of our flexible staffing team to gain great experience with organisations across Worcestershire.

Well.

Increasing revenues.

Working across our Clinical Leadership, Operational and Marketing teams, we’ve identified a new business area in our soon-to-launch brand, Well by Vertis—which will deliver select private medical services, beginning with GLP-1 prescribing.

We’ve worked closely with Board Members, Medical Directors and Marketing teams, as well as colleagues at external eCommerce and PPC suppliers, to develop a high-return proposition that allows us to tap into a fast-growing market and deliver revenues for investment across the wider business, as well as, of course, into PCNs.

Remedy have developed a finalised brand identity for Well, shown below—which positions Well as a highly premium provider, focused heavily on the GP-led aspects of the service, in line with our core USP.

We’ve undertaken a huge amount of cost modelling ahead of launch to calculate the proposed value proposition presented by GLP-1 medications in the private market as it stands, and believe this represents an exceptional opportunity to deliver a service that plays to the strengths in-house at Vertis, while also providing additional opportunities for locum GPs as we develop—and, of course, supporting revenue growth for our members.

We’re extremely excited about the upcoming launch of this business area—which we think will offer new and exciting opportunities for colleagues across Vertis to benefit from our federation’s ambitions and growth.

Wider Services.

Efficiencies built in.

We’ve placed substantial time and research into improvements in this business area over the last month—including meeting with suppliers to identify the best technology solutions to deliver services around ticketing and process management.

This has been largely thanks to our meetings with suppliers for the Well and Workforce implementations, as our goal with these is to build the most efficient tech stack possible—and so as we do so, we are briefing each on our full organisational requirements, asking each to come back with the best cost/efficiency solution for both Well/Workforce, and for the organisation at scale.

We know, after all, that a significant cost for service businesses like ours lies in time spent switching between programmes and tasks—and so, should we identify a software solution for our revenue-focused services that can support across the wider business with limited additional cost implications, it is likely to result in an overall cost saving in terms of time wastage.

In tandem, we have begun the task of auditing all processes undertaken by our admin team and their existing ways of working which, for the most part, are primarily based on email or in spreadsheets—which, while functional, do not allow for the best-in-class reporting and management information towards which we believe we need to aim in order to run our business most efficiently.

That’s meant reviewing the way we deliver every single one of our existing services—from Derma AI to PCU—and identifying where we can make improvements to our internal systems, making our operations run more seamlessly across the board.

This hasn’t been without the support of our fantastic—and hard working!—admin team, who’ve helped us with valuable insight into the way they’re currently delivering our services, so a big thank you to them for their input as we’ve gone through this transition.

HR & L&D.

Seamless integrations.

With a view to making HR more user-friendly and streamlined for everyone, we’ve created a new Self Service Portals for our staff—with an additional Self-Service Portal for PCN Managers to follow soon.

Our goal, here, is to provide everyone who works with us with a simple way to find the policies, templates, and information you need, when you need it.

Hosted on Sharepoint, our Staff Portal is designed to help you quickly access your staff handbook, policies and other useful information—HR-related, or otherwise. (In fact, if you’re reading this after Wednesday 1st May, there’s a chance you’re accessing this newsletter from the Portal itself—in which case, welcome!)

After all, nobody likes having to root through endless emails to find a document they’re pretty sure they’ve been sent at some point in the past. Much better, we think, to put everything in one central place—so that whatever you’re looking for, you can find it any time.

This Staff Portal is a work-in-progress, and we’re open to your suggestions about what else might be helpful to include over the longer-term—so if you’ve got ideas, please let our Communications team know by email, here.

Marketing.

Quality over quantity.

Across Remedy and internal work, our small (but perfectly formed) Marketing & Communications team are exceptionally busy at present, even by usual standards—with priorities including our rebrand, the launch of several new service areas, and the delivery of multiple end of year campaigns for our valued Remedy clients.

We’re extremely proud to report that the ICB intend to submit the Home for Lunch initiative for a HSJ Award for 2024—with the campaign we produced as part of this intended to form a significant part of their awards submission. The ICB have a high degree of confidence that this will be shortlisted, and this will be a boon for Remedy if so—as while it is not usual practice for the agency to be named), we will be well placed to market off the back of this to other NHS clients.

Notably, the recently extended #WeAreHWICS campaign was also considered by the ICB for submission for Communications Campaign of the Year, though ultimately only one submission is permitted for this category—but its consideration is testament to the quality of work we’ve provided to HWICB in 2023-4, and the valued partnership we have with this fantastic client.

Practices with Remedy websites might also be aware we’ve been commissioned by the Digital team to undertake a Website Compliance Project which will help our practices align their websites with the GP Practice Benchmarking & Improvement Tool, against which all H&W practices were audited in late 2023.

With our team set to launch our new initiatives—including Well—in early Summer, alongside several new campaigns for our existing clients, it’s an extremely busy, but exciting, time for team Remedy.

Finance.

Forensic budgets.

Our Head of Finance has been working exceptionally closely with our CEO, Head of Operations and other core colleagues to identify the best ways of working over the coming year—helping us to implement our proposed changes in the most cost-effective and high-yield ways.

We have identified a range of cost-saving measures for 2024/5 that have included changes to systems, the cancellation of legacy contracts and procurement of new suppliers, and other “fine tooth comb” solutions that have allowed us to dramatically improve the way our federation operates—and deliver better returns for our members.

And our Finance team have also been working with our Operations teams to forecast revenues across a range of new planned services, both commissioned and developed as new business prospects.

This has helped us to adapt our approach as our Federation changes from a more traditional, legacy model to something forward-thinking—and ambitious about the future of General Practice.

A few additional Finance updates.

  • As we have now entered April, Suzy will be working on completing Quarter 4 management accounts, the draft accounts will be sent out for discussion as per the Finance Schedule of work.

    April also marks the start of the new financial year. We have just received in the new funding statements for the PCNs for 2024/25. Suzy and Tina will be updating the Funding Trackers ready for the April payments which will be received into the bank accounts around the 20th of the month. We will also be working on the Finance Forecasts which will be sent out in due course—so if you’re expecting any of the above, please keep an eye out.

  • You can now view your year-end P60 on the Sage HR Portal.

    A P60 is a form given to all employees at the end of the tax year. It shows your income for that year and the tax you’ve paid on it. A P60 also includes your National Insurance contributions, and other information such as Maternity Pay, Student Loan repayments, and Statutory Sick Pay if applicable.

    If you want to claim back overpaid tax, apply for tax credits, or apply for a mortgage or loan, you’ll need to supply your P60 as proof of your income and the amount of tax you’ve paid on your salary. It’s an important document to keep around.

    You should carefully check the information on it. Too little tax paid could mean facing penalties from HMRC, and too much paid could make you eligible for a tax refund. Let the finance team know if you think there are any discrepancies.

  • As of 6th April 2024, there are new rules from the government which will affect Net Monthly Pay. The Changes would see primary class 1 NICs reduced by 2 percentage points from 10% to 8% (this is the main rate paid by employees) for more information click here.

    Minimum Wage will also be increasing for over 21-year-old rates will increase to £11.44 and 18-20-year rate will be £8.60. For more information click here.

  • In 2022, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) proposed changes to the amount members pay for their NHS Pension benefits. Some changes took effect on 1 October 2022, and the second phase of these changes to member contributions went ahead on 1 April 2024.

    If you pay NHS pension contributions you will notice that you will pay a different percentage from your April pay onwards. If you would like to read more please follow this link.

Thank you for reading, and for being part of the Vertis Health community.

We hope you’re as excited as we are about our future.

Claire Goodall

CEO, Vertis Health