Provide Community Group Chief Executive, Mark Heasman
Health and social care organisation Provide Community, which has its headquarters in Colchester has announced record financial and operational results in its 2021/22 annual report, including significant improvements in waiting times and more than half a million pounds in community grants and donations.
Operating as a Community Interest Company (CIC), Provide Community is responsible for the delivery of more than 55 health and social care services in NHS and community settings across the region. The organisation also delivers the Essex Wellbeing Service and the Essex Sexual Health Service.
With an ambitious three-year growth strategy, the organisation’s financial success was 10% above its £70 million target, enabling record charitable grant giving and donations to local charities and community groups totalling more than £500,000.
Initiatives over the last year including a nationally adopted approach to treating long-COVID, innovative processes to delivering clinical care at the height of the pandemic, and the development of the new Essex Wellbeing Service saw Provide Community recognised in a series of national awards, including the prestigious Health Service Journal (HSJ) awards.
A vaccination programme rolled out in the local community was one of the organisation’s key successes of 2021-22. This saw Provide Community colleagues and clinicians step up to both deliver and receive the COVID-19 vaccinations. Corporate clinicians were redeployed to local community vaccination centres delivering swift COVID-19 vaccinations to the public and Provide Community employees. The vaccination programme saw 96% of Provide’s workforce accept protection against the virus, helping Provide protect the communities it serves.
Provide Community Group Chief Executive Mark Heasman said: ‘We set high expectations going into 2021 and started the year with an ambitious strategy, and I am delighted that we have not only met our organisational goals, but significantly exceeded them through what continued to be challenging times for health and social care.
“We have a team of more than 1200 incredible Provide Community colleagues, who have not just delivered business as usual through a pandemic; they have improved services, reduced waiting times, made services more accessible and delivered clinical best practice that has been recognised and replicated at a national level.
You can read the full 2021-22 Provide Community report here.
