Joining NHS North of England Commercial Procurement Collaborative Framework for Employee Benefits in Health, Wealth and Wellbeing

With the vital role of the NHS and their hard-working staff foremost in all our minds over the last year, it has never been more important for the organisation to ensure their employees receive the best possible rewards and benefits service.

EQ is delighted to join the Framework. Our inclusive, fair and flexible Total Reward plans are now available for the NHS to choose under their new health, wealth and wellbeing procurement category.

Katrina Hepworth, Category Manager for FM, Property and Business Services at North Of England Commercial Procurement Collaborative (NOE CPC) said: “The pandemic has had an impact on all of us, and it is important that employers recognise this and ensure their employees are happy and healthy. NOE CPC’s free to access framework offers a wealth of benefits to support employees with their physical, emotional, mental, social and financial wellbeing."

As one of just four suppliers on the Framework, this partnership builds on EQ’s longstanding relationship with the public sector. We are a leading provider of public sector pension schemes in the UK, including the NHS with over 3 million pension members and 1.5 million Civil Service members in addition to delivering employee benefits to over a million employees in the private and public sectors, as well as managing records and payments for over 9 million UK pension scheme members.

Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust host the Framework. They work with NHS trusts and public sector organisations across the UK to deliver benefits through collaborative and bespoke procurement solutions via the providers accepted onto the Framework.

The ‘Carter report’ examined the operational productivity of NHS providers (June 2015), and highlighted the complexity and scale of the NHS’s efficiency challenge. Suppliers who make it on to the Framework have a real opportunity to help the NHS meet this challenge, working together to innovate, rationalise and do things differently.

EQ HR Solutions will be offering a selection of services to the NHS, with their overriding goals in mind; namely insight, communicate and engagement:

• Total Reward via EQ’s PeopleSpace, to help the NHS improve visibility, usage and value of the existing benefit and reward programmes, thereby maximising benefits and minimising costs.
• EQ Amplify Insight, to design a benefit and reward programme tailored to multi-generational, multi-cultural and flexible working needs. Combining actual benefit usage with real-world, socio-economic and geographical data, we can help the NHS get to know its people and understand:

1. What benefits they are likely to use and value;
2. What benefits aren’t bringing any value and are unlikely ever to do so;
3. What benefits could and should be bringing value to specific groups but currently remain underused.

• Employee communications that are personalised and connect instead of a ‘one size fits all' approach. EQ can help the NHS determine what is working and what isn’t via an audit of current channels and messages. We can then design a communication programme that will help improve benefit programme usage and value while supporting a culture of employee and organisational wellbeing. This specialist communication support can dovetail with PeopleSpace and/or Amplify Insight.

Katrina Hepworth, Category Manager for FM, Property and Business Services at North Of England Commercial Procurement Collaborative (NOE CPC) said: “The pandemic has had an impact on all of us, and it is important that employers recognise this and ensure their employees are happy and healthy. NOE CPC’s free to access framework offers a wealth of benefits to support employees with their physical, emotional, mental, social and financial wellbeing.”

?