We have recently been updating our Business Plan to reflect our aims for the coming year and have taken the opportunity to reflect on our accomplishments to date.

Since the formation of HIF, we have endeavoured to modernise and improve our services, as well as our employee environment, with an aim of being able to provide services, both to the Trust and wider external clients.

A large part of this has been focused on improving sustainability within HIF and the Trust. We have also been working hard to improve our environment and have an even bigger focus on colleague wellbeing.

We have been developing our workforce initiatives to ensure we are an Employer of Choice, both with formal induction sessions, focusing on welcoming new colleagues to our teams and ensuring they are well briefed on internal policies and procedures, succession and training opportunities and also to introduce new colleagues to our Staff Forum. Our Forum allows all colleagues to have a voice in the development of HIF, encouraging discussions around enhancing efficiency, evaluating strengths and weaknesses and, ultimately, this work is then processed into our Business Plan for the coming year.

placeholder image — HIF Colleagues in our Catering Team

Over the last year, we have recruited over 120 new colleagues to HIF, including some colleagues who had previously worked within our facilities services and have now returned. One of these attended a recent induction session and remarked “I was impressed by the positive changes in operating methods and staff support, highlighting the commitment of HIF to growth and creating a workplace where everyone can thrive”.

Our reflections have enabled us to focus on our priorities for the coming year, both within our individual service areas and within the company as a whole.

We will be working to continue our modernisation, by upgrading internal digital systems and focusing on service performance, delivery and efficiency. We will be looking to reinforce our compliance requirements and are very pleased to be able to report that we have received excellent feedback relating to the National PLACE scores regarding our patient environment. Our food domain scores, in particular, were much significantly improved on previous years and we aim to continue this upward trend.

We will be working closely with our managerial and leadership teams and will soon be implementing regular Culture Workshops, with a focus on improving leadership skills and also embedding our apprenticeship programmes.

Finally, we would like to say a huge thank you, both to our colleagues for their efforts over the last year and continuing, but also to our volunteers and apprentices. We recently celebrated Volunteer Week, which highlights the invaluable contribution made by these generous individuals and our current ProjectSearch intake are also due to graduate in the coming weeks. We are extremely grateful for the work that everyone involved in HIF, in any capacity, provides.

If you would like more information about HIF or the work that we do, please feel free to contact me at [email protected].