Meridian Healthcare

Bond TeamSpirit at the heart of Meridian Healthcare

Over the last 10 years, Meridian Healthcare has been consistently growing by on average five employees per month and looks set to continue the trend. In order to manage this continued growth, the Human Resources (HR) team at Meridian Healthcare, has been using Bond TeamSpirit throughout this period – a comprehensive and fully accredited in-house HR and payroll system. Meridian has seen maximum savings of over £ 160,000 per annum on agency staff through the use of this comprehensive software. Bob Dean, freelance journalist, investigates.

Business Improvement

Meridian Healthcare is an independent provider of care services, striving to improve the quality of life for older people through the provision of long term care services and accommodation. Their services are influenced by over 1300 residents, their families, day care users, health professionals and staff. 

Prior to using Bond TeamSpirit, Meridian Healthcare outsourced its payroll to a bureau service and managed its own HR activity. In line with company growth, Meridian’s management decided that to effectively manage key aspects of the HR function, a software package was required and after careful consideration selected Bond TeamSpirit.

David Hempstock, Meridian Healthcare’s Divisional Financial Controller, comments, “The previous way of working no longer met our business needs and many processes required the duplication of effort when inputting data to the system.  With Bond TeamSpirit, we have greater visibility and control over reporting and have been able to identify problem areas such as compliance, training and absenteeism thus saving us time and unnecessary costs. We are now able to spend less time on administrative tasks and concentrate more on developmental management.” 

Absenteeism

As the company continued to grow, absenteeism became a significant management problem. The organisation was unclear as to the reason behind absences and there was no way of quantifying the reports. Hempstock explains, “A major drawback was the distinct lack of quantifiable information we were receiving and without solid information it was impossible to tackle the issue of absenteeism. Over the last decade our business had grown from 12 care centres with 600 staff to where we now have 27 care centres and over 1250 staff.  As a result there is significantly increased cost and a much higher level of reporting responsibility involved when an absence occurs.

 

Compliance and Training

When operating within the care industry, there are considerable compliance issues with an array of rules and regulations, to which the company has to adhere. The appropriate training of our staff is a key factor in maintaining our compliance and high standards of service for our residents.  TeamSpirit has enabled Meridian to carefully manage and update individual HR and training profiles for each employee allowing Meridian to be in control of its workforce and to ensure that appropriately trained staff are employed at all times. Hempstock adds, “All care staff undergo mandatory training. TeamSpirit helps us to track who has been trained and future training needs.  The system alerts us to any training requirements, which ensures that everyone is trained to the required standard.”

One location

By having 27 care centres in disparate locations, it was untenable to manage each care centre separately, so it proved beneficial to manage all the care centres from one central system. Bond TeamSpirit’s highly flexible reporting has provided the ability to customise reports to control and keep track of all 27 care centres and 1250-plus staff.

Hempstock explains, “Employees are typically contracted to a certain care centre, however occasionally staff provide support to other care centres to ensure appropriate staffing levels are met. The previous HR and Payroll system was not flexible enough to take into account the extra hours worked at different locations, however, with Bond TeamSpirit, we are able to ensure that the additional shifts are costed to the appropriate location, rather than the employee’s originally contracted care centre. Bond TeamSpirit has provided us with a way of managing and keeping track of this in a flexible and organised manner, improving our day to day operations dramatically.”

Overall, Meridian Healthcare has considerably benefited from the Bond TeamSpirit implementation. The company now has the capability to effectively manage all care centres from one central location and keep absenteeism to a minimal level, whilst ensuring compliance with all the current and frequently changing legislation.  With the significant cost savings that the software has provided, Meridian Healthcare has been able to make more time for business and takes pride in training its staff to an exceptional standard.

About Meridian Healthcare

Meridian Healthcare is one of the UK’s leading providers of care centre services for older people.  All 27 care centres operate under the brand of Meridian Healthcare.  The Meridian Healthcare brand stands for excellent care services whether this be long or short terms care or day care services. Meridian provides residential and nursing care services.   Each care centre provides personal and social care services to its clients.

Meridian is focused on providing high quality care in well invested facilities. Over the last 4 years alone, the company has invested over £20m in expanding its portfolio, either acquiring new sites or developing its own care centres.  This investment along with the continual push for high quality standards (which has resulted in all but 1 care centre being rated Good or Excellent by C QC), has resulted in Meridian care centres being the care centre of choice for many in their local community.   100% of Meridian’s rooms are single occupancy and 80% offer en suites with 12% offering en suite showers.

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