Stakeholder Update
Autumn 2024
Continued momentum.
Six months in - we’re seeing results.
At the start of this year, we took a bold step forward by retiring the SW Healthcare identity and embracing our new brand, Vertis Health. The name "Vertis" reflects our deep connection to Worcestershire’s heritage and symbolizes unity and togetherness—values that define who we are and what we aspire to achieve. This rebrand was more than just a new look; it was a strategic move to simplify our core proposition, align our sub-brands, and position ourselves for future growth.
As we reach the latter half of 2024, that transformation is now driving us forward.
Our Business Transformation Programme has been a catalyst for innovation, efficiency, and growth. It’s allowed us to build on our heritage while expanding our revenue-generating services like Well, Workforce and Remedy—ensuring that vital funding stays in the local NHS.
We are thrilled to share the milestones we’ve achieved so far, as well as the path ahead, as we continue transforming Vertis Health into a model for sustainable, patient-centered care.
CQC Readiness Programme.
Our commitment to excellence has been underscored by the launch of our CQC Readiness Programme.
This initiative has brought together cross-functional teams from across Vertis Health, with a six month delivery programme following Lean Six Sigma methodology—ensuring that we are well-positioned not just for our next CQC review, but against increasing competition from private sector providers.
That means assessing required documentation against other accreditations that might support us in securing, delivering, and retaining contracts on behalf of our members—such as ISO9001, ISO27001, and JOSCAR.
What’s particularly exciting about this programme is how it’s streamlining our internal processes, from governance to daily operations. By integrating our clinical and operational teams more closely, we are not just meeting and exceeding regulatory standards. We’re setting a higher bar for ourselves.
This proactive approach ensures that Vertis Health remains a trusted partner for NHS and private sector contracts alike—helping us become a strong player in an increasingly competitive local and national landscape.
Your Health.
A reimagined service.
The Your Health service has never been more vital, nor more visible, within our community. From 1st June to 30th September, we’ve engaged 882 patients in a series of record-breaking months for the service—including large-scale public health outreach and smaller, targeted interventions.
This is not just a continuation of the work we’ve done—it represents an evolution of our ability to connect with diverse patient groups and deliver care where it is needed most.
Much of this success has been the result of us playing to our strengths—with our PCNs being the “key to the lock” in helping us to reach those areas of the community we most need to reach. That means thinking outside the box on how the Your Health service works—not just countywide, but locally. For instance, over the last three months, we’ve:
Collaborated with Worcester City PCN’s cancer care team on community Cervical Screening clinics
Worked with Pershore & Upton PCN to devise bespoke communications for BP testing in the Gypsy Roma Traveler community
Developed bespoke pathways for blood testing in Nightingales PCN
Embedded our Homeless Nurse into the Homeless team at Kidderminster Medical Centre, better supporting rough sleepers in Wyre Forest
And we’ve worked collaboratively with PCNs to make sure patient data is logged smoothly and accurately at every NHS Health Check—so practices and PCNs see the clear and direct benefits of engaging with the service.
This service has not only proven successful but also highlighted the potential for further collaborations with local agencies, ensuring that Your Health remains a cornerstone of integrated community care in Worcestershire.
Workforce.
A focus on excellence.
As we continue to build out our flexible staffing division, Workforce by Vertis is becoming a vital component of our long-term strategy. Our focus this year has been on ensuring that our workforce meets the highest standards of compliance, a key requirement for achieving NHS Agency Framework accreditation.
With this accreditation, we’ll unlock the potential to scale our operations and provide a broader range of staffing solutions to PCNs, practices, and other healthcare organisations.
The completed compliance review has brought our existing flexible workforce up-to-date with all necessary governance standards. This attention to detail not only ensures patient safety but enables us to prove ourselves as a credible and trusted partner within the NHS—and sets us up with a strong baseline from which to begin a recruitment programme throughout the coming months.
Our goal is to become the go-to solution for flexible staffing needs in Worcestershire and beyond, allowing us to support both NHS contracts and our growing private services.
Well.
Safe, proactive care.
The launch of Well by Vertis in August was a significant milestone—as by offering private prescriptions for Wegovy and Mounjaro, we are addressing a growing demand for medically supervised weight loss treatments.
What sets Well by Vertis apart is our holistic approach to patient care, which goes above and beyond that offered by the majority of existing online prescribers at our price point.
Each initial prescription is accompanied by a video consultation with a GP or ANP—and a regular schedule of video consultations and online questionnaires take place throughout the patient’s journey with us, ensuring appropriate safeguarding and support.
This service is about more than just meeting market demand—it’s about offering a level of care that prioritises patient safety and long-term wellbeing. We know, after all, that patients are asking for these medications in our member practices. Our goal is to provide a solution that prescribes them in a way that’s safe, and that doesn’t present further problems for the NHS long-term.
With our model now established for weight loss medications, we’re exploring other pathways and products that we might be able to deliver, long-term—safely, and in a way that supports our member practices.
Wider Services.
Behind-the-scenes.
Behind every successful service is a finely-tuned operational structure, and our Services & Operations team has been working tirelessly to ensure that every aspect of our business runs smoothly—revisiting old ways of working, and aligning our systems with our new Best Practice approach.
The key focus for our Operations team has been streamlining internal workflows, optimising resource allocation, and ensuring that all services are delivered efficiently. Improvements in these areas are allowing us to handle increasing demand without compromising on the quality of care we provide.
And new bespoke reporting mechanisms are providing our teams with real-time data, enabling faster decision-making, improved service delivery—and better transparency and value for our stakeholders. We’re in the process of rolling these out across all of our services—including DermaAI, which is set to return from the end of October 2024.
Looking ahead, we will continue to fine-tune our operational strategies, ensuring that Vertis Health is an agile, delivery-focused organisation—able to meet the ever-evolving needs of our patients, partners, and staff.
HR & L&D.
Making HR simple.
We are excited to announce that both the HR Self-Service Portal for PCNs and the Staff Portal are now fully live and already making a significant impact across Vertis Health. These portals represent a significant step forward in our mission to streamline processes and provide seamless access to the resources our teams need to thrive.
Thanks to the collaborative input of PCN teams, our HR Self-Service portal offers a secure, centralised hub where they can effortlessly access policies, templates, and forms. Early feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, with a noticeable reduction in email traffic and administrative bottlenecks. This new system is enabling PCNs to focus more on what truly matters—delivering outstanding patient care—while internal teams can work more efficiently than ever before.
Our Staff Portal, too, is empowering every member of the Vertis Health team by providing instant access to their Staff Handbook, HR policies, and essential resources. By putting these tools at their fingertips, we’re creating an environment where our employees—and by extension, those working in our PCNs—feel more supported, informed, and engaged in their roles.
These portals are just the beginning. As we look to the future, we will continue to build on this foundation, ensuring that the platforms grow and evolve alongside our teams’ needs, and incorporate new and republished policies that develop as part of our CQC Readiness Programme.
Our goal, then, is to create a culture of transparency, efficiency, and empowerment that will drive Vertis Health forward over the coming years.
Marketing.
Award-nominated work.
We’re thrilled to announce that Home for Lunch has been nominated for HSJ Communications Campaign of the Year. For a small agency in our first year of operation, to have a campaign nominated for a national award is a win in itself—and proof of our ability to deliver results for our clients at a local level, and beyond.
Over the summer period, Home for Lunch returned for an integrated outdoor campaign—extending our reach to a total 2.7million impacts overall across digital, print, and out-of-home media across the two counties.
We’ve also delivered the Movements Matter campaign for Herefordshire & Worcestershire Local Maternity & Neonatal System, which produced 2.8million impacts over this summer alone—with ads for both of these campaigns running across bus networks throughout Worcestershire as part of a combined media buy.
And we’re continuing to support the ICS Attraction team, with ads running for ongoing recruitment fairs across the two counties to promote entry-level roles across the system.
This is all in addition to the work our Marketing team do to support Vertis Health and our wider projects and brands—including Well, Your Health, and Workforce—as well as reactive communications that support with PR for practices and PCNs.
In the last three months, we’ve completed an extensive programme of compliance across all practice websites managed by Remedy, and we’re soon to publish a new service and pricing guide which, like our HR Self-Service Portal, will make our federation more transparent, and easier to navigate for our members—helping us achieve another of our transformation goals.
Finance.
Back on track.
With our teams continually working in collaboration with Finance to deliver work to budgets revised at the start of the 2024/5 financial year, we’re thrilled to report we’re well on track—with our current projects all well in line with their projected targets, and a delivery slightly above our budget for Q1.
This is a real achievement in light of the challenges in the sector at present, in which reduced funding opportunities are significantly impacting PCNs and GP federations nationally—so to be on track financially for the 2024/5 year is a real testament to the hard work undertaken by our teams across the board.
Of course, we will still need to be operationally and fiscally careful over the coming months and years to ensure we maintain this level of stability—but with new revenue-focused programmes in place to protect and generate incomes, we’re quietly optimistic about our future, and excited to continue to support General Practice in Worcestershire.
Thank you for reading, and for being part of the Vertis Health community.
Claire Goodall
CEO, Vertis Health