Corporate and Social Responsibilities

Employees

The degree of change undergone by the Group and its markets continued to place significant strain and responsibility on all those involved and the dedication to the delivery of the Group’s services remains unstinting.

The Group believes that communicating effectively with its employees in all aspects of its business, particularly the economic and financial factors affecting the Group’s performance, is important to its future success. In addition it is the Group’s policy to encourage employees to participate in its success, through a variety of performance-related incentive arrangements, including the provision of savings-related share option schemes.

Diversity

The Group recognises its responsibilities in this key area of working life and is continually taking steps to balance society and employee needs with its business requirements. It has a wide and varied employee base with significant numbers of female employees, many at senior management level, as well as a significant employee base of individuals who come from ethnic minority groupings.

The programme to actively recruit employees with disabilities, particularly in the Birmingham Clinical Response Centre, continued through the year. The Group’s operational working practices and policies continue to comply with the Disability Discrimination Act 1995.

Training and Development

Nestor Academy - Nestor Academy is the framework for our in-house management development programme. The objective is to identify and develop a cross-functional pool of talented employees to support the growth of the business and to support their own personal development.

Nestor Management Award (NMA) - NMA is an accredited professional qualification and is equivalent to NVQ5, first degree or MBA credits. This has been extended to many of our local branch managers during 2007 and is an ongoing process.

Social Care Workforce - every new care worker has to undertake training in the new Common Induction Standards, which were introduced in 2006. Mandatory training includes administration of medicines, protection of vulnerable adults and manual handling. This training qualifies as ‘Accredited Prior Learning’ towards the Social Care Workers NVQ2 Award.

Clinical Governance

The Group remains committed to its robust approach to the identification and management of clinical risk. We continue to develop our governance processes to ensure that our services meet the evolving and demanding regulatory requirements and of course individuals’ safety. In Primary Care measures of patient access remain well above the national quality standards and measures of patient satisfaction continue to be good, whilst in Social Care we have further increased the regularity and scope of our branch audits.

Health and Safety

The Board is aware of its responsibilities towards its employees and all users of the Group’s services in health and safety matters. It recognises its responsibility for the setting and monitoring of appropriate policies, guidelines and practices in the formal Schedule of Matters Reserved for the Board’s consideration.

The Group’s head of Human Resources is directly accountable to the Chief Executive for overseeing safety matters and worked closely with the Group’s business units to roll out revised policies and reporting arrangements. Day to day advice is provided by the Group Health and Safety Manager and by an external consultancy. An ongoing training programme supports the effective implementation of this process, which is based on a comprehensive series of risk assessments and reporting arrangements. During the year all health and safety matters remained integrated into the Nestor Quality Management System.

The FTSE4Good Index

As a reflection of the health and social care services that we deliver the Company has been listed on the FTSE4Good index since 2004.

Skills for Life

The Department for Education and Skills (DfES) invited the Group to participate and promote the ‘Skills for Life’ programme as one of the first organisations to be a partner. Within many workforce population groups there is a recognised lack of basic skills in literacy and numeracy. These gaps are being closed through projects enabled by budget investment from the European Social Fund.

Environmental Policy

As a service-based organisation, with no manufacturing, limited transportation facilities and no freehold properties, the Group’s exposure to environmental risk is limited, as is its ability to control the environmental impact of its activities. During the year, the Group continued to refine the formal environmental policy adopted by the Board in 2000, with a particular focus on matters relating to the clinical services provided by the Group. The policy document, which is directed at minimising the potential impact of the Group’s operations on the environment, provides that the Board retains ultimate responsibility for setting and monitoring its policy on environmental matters.