UH Bristol NHS Foundation Trust's CSR Essay Is Impactful.

Values and Objectives of UH Bristol NHS Foundation Trust

A.C. 1.1- Analysis of the objectives aligning it with the CSR strategies of the company 

The company is driven by values and principles which has been the foundation of all the objectives of UH Bristol NHS Foundation Trust. Respect everyone, Accept change and innovation, recognizing success and working as a team are the basic values that is followed throughout company (Uhbristol.nhs.uk 2018).   

The objectives of UH Bristol is as follows:

• To deliver high quality services with compassion and care
• To build a secure and modern environment for the clients
• To employee the best people and help them achieve their potential
• To encourage innovation through research and development and channelizing funds to motivate change.
• To provide the people in the region of operation with services of high quality (Uhbristol.nhs.uk 2018)

The values and principles that drive the company explains that the management of UH Bristol complies with the concept of triple bottom line as the objectives that are discussed are not only based on earning profits but is also directed towards the betterment of the future and allow a sustainable development. The organisation is run with the help of a trust which is led by a chairman and has executive as well as non-executive directors it is a part of NHS. As a part of CSR the company has a list of charities and fundraising partners, the two main charities that are associated with the company are “Above & Beyond” and “The Grand Appeal” (Uhbristol.nhs.uk 2018). Above & beyond raises resources for Bristol city centre hospitals, it is a local charity. The company invests around £3 million in projects in order to improve the service quality of the patients. The Grand Appeal is exclusively for the children charity the aim of the charity is to secure the lives and help in developing the livelihood of children who are physically unwell at Bristol Children's Hospital. The charity has been operating since 1995 (Uhbristol.nhs.uk 2018).

The company believes that sustainability is the responsibility the company has in spending the public funds responsibly. The natural resources that are used by the organisation should be also allocated and replenished. The company abides by the Public Services (Social Value) Act (2012).

It is observed that the company aligns the objectives of the business with the CSR policies that are taken by the company.

The objectives of the CSR policy of the company are as follows:

• To develop a sustainable future
• To reduce the environmental impact
• To ensure reduction of carbon footprint with the help of latest and innovative technologies

With the help of these objectives the company aligns the objectives that are discussed above especially the challenge of providing the people with high quality services while managing the resources carefully with minimum impact.

A.C. 1.2 - The impact of a Corporate Social Responsibility strategy on internal and external organisational stakeholders

Internal stakeholder

The employees and the members of the trust are the internal stakeholders of the company. They are responsible for running the organisation on a day to day basis. The CSR strategies impact the internal stakeholders in a number of ways; people are appointed and are posted aligning the strategies in order to carry out the decisions that have been taken. The employees who are directly appointed to work upon the strategies are directly impacted by them and the other work as a support to help these people achieve their objective. For the trust the CSR activities not only help the society and the environment it also helps the company to gather significant recognition and goodwill among the people (Wang et al. 2016).

Charities and Fundraising Partners of UH Bristol NHS Foundation Trust

The external stakeholders of the company are the patients, the society, the government, shareholders etc.

The patients: Many people have been a part of the charity and have gained from the funds that have been raised by the organisation. Treating medical condition can be expensive for a number of people and the charities help people who lack monetary support by their own (Korschun et al. 2014).

The government: UH Bristol with the strategies follow and support a number of Government policies like the Public Services (Social Value) Act (2012), Climate Change Act etc (Uhbristol.nhs.uk 2018).  With the help of the government the company also enjoys liberty in employing the strategies the companies have undertaken to ensure sustainability (Korschun et al. 2014).

The society and the environment are the main stakeholder in the CSR activities, whatever decision or strategy that the company undertakes is based on the issues that the society is facing. The company tries to fulfill their duty that it has towards the society and the environment with the help of these strategies, the aim of the sustainability activities are to improve the livelihood of the people as well as improve the service of the company provides the society.

A.C. 1.3 - Organisation’s strategy aligned with a CSR strategy

The organisation invests a significant amount of funds in the innovation of the process as well as the service. Therefore, the research and development segment of the company are encouraged to come up with new and improved ideas. This organisation strategy can be aligned with the CSR strategy of the company in reduction of climatic impact. The company has come up with new and innovative ways in which carbon footprint as well as wastes can be reduced.  The following figure explains that ways in which both business and society is impacted with the CSR strategies and hence it is always aligned irrespective of the company (Korschun et al. 2014) 

A.C. 1.4 - Corporate Social Responsibility strategy to support the internal and external organisational objectives 

The company can invest in a once in a year program of a week with medical students guided by experienced staff members in offering free treatment for the people in need. The venture will allow the students and the doctors to go around the areas of operation and find people who are in need.

This venture can be associated with one of the charities that raise funds for the company.  In this way the company can satisfy the objective of providing the people with better service and also allowing the people to be a part of a greater cause (Clapp and Rowlands 2014). 

A.C. 2.1 - The organisational value chain aligned with the CSR strategy 

CSR Policy Objectives of UH Bristol NHS Foundation Trust

The primary activity of UH Bristol is as follows:

From the time a patient walks in to the hospital the area the primary activity of the organisation begins with e diagnosis of the condition that he or she has been facing. Apart from this the suppliers of the organisation like the medicine suppliers, devices and instrument suppliers etc are part of the inbound logistics that are associated with the business. Innovation plays an important role in the supply of items and help in achieving a high quality of service of the people with the lowest possible use of natural resources (Asif et al. 2013).

Operations of the organisation can be divided in three segments: clinical services, research and development as well as education. The services that are provided by the organisation are varied in terms of the wide range of services that are provided by the staff members across nine areas of operation (Uhbristol.nhs.uk 2018). There are more than 100 different clinical services that the organisation offers the patients. With the help of this plethora of services the company can easily align the CSR strategy of improving the livelihood of the society (Uhbristol.nhs.uk 2018). The management of the organisation always tries to achieve the objectives of the business with the help of innovation and in this case the CSR strategies are aligned with the objectives of the business. The operations of the company are all based on the values that have been discussed above (Clapp and Rowlands 2014).

The company actively uses social media and digital marketing platforms to market the services and also to communicate the CSR activities that the company has been strategising.

Secondary activities

All the above primary activities of the company are assisted with the help of the secondary activities such as the infrastructure of the organisation. Apart from that the management of the company considers the people associated with the organisation are the most important part of running the institution successfully (Khan et al. 2013). The business model that the company operates upon is not based on profit rather it is based on spending the public money responsibly hence technology and development plays an important role in the support of the primary activities, research and development leads to innovation which is an important part of the CSR strategy of the company (Uhbristol.nhs.uk 2018).  

Thus it can be said that the CSR strategies are aligned with the value chain of the organisation. The management of the organisation assure that they are true to their commitment towards the society and the environment. Following are some of the evidence that show the performance of the sustainability with respect to the number of staff members (Korschun et al. 2014).

Internal Stakeholders of UH Bristol NHS Foundation Trust

A.C. 2.2 - Methods for agreement and engagement with all stakeholders for the Corporate Social Responsibility strategy 

Internal stakeholder

The internal stakeholders are the people who are associated with the operations of the institutions and hence they are directly associated and engaged with the CSR strategy. The management is responsible for determining the importance of an area of concern and developing a strategy that might positively impact the society or environment (Deng et al. 2013). The aim of the company is to pay attention to the issue and aim to reduce the issues. The management is responsible for developing the steps and organising the strategies as well (Deng et al. 2013).

The employees are responsible for carrying out the strategies that have been coined by the management. There are people who take care of the implementation of the strategy exclusively; the engagement of the employees in the CSR activities is significant as the process of implementation of a strategy is based on the performance of the employees who are responsible for carrying out the duties associated with the strategy (Andriof et al.2017). There should also be scope for these stakeholders to participate in the decision making process in order to efficiently employee the ideas (Deng et al. 2013).

External stakeholder

The patients are the clients who are one of the most important stakeholders of the company, and the engagement of the patients and the family members of the patients are essential to ensure some of the aims of the CSR strategies are achieved. Communication with the patients in involving them to be a part of the CSR strategy is essential. As an external part of the company the patients are unaware of the internal strategies hence a clear message regarding the strategy and participation should be communicated with the people (Mason and Simmons 2014).  For example, one of the strategies that the company has undertaken is to reduce waste, the people must be alerted to ensure there is no wastage in the products they use during their association with the company (Mason and Simmons 2014). 

Similarly with the government and the suppliers, the process of communication plays the most important role in engaging the stakeholders in the CSR strategies; the role of the stakeholders must be described (Flammer 2013).

A.C. 2.3 - Devise an implementation plan for the Corporate Social Responsibility strategy

Corporate social responsibility is the concept defines the responsibility that organisations have towards the society and the people (McWilliams 2015). Price of profit has been the only objective or motive for operation for the longest time, but that has changed over the past few decades. In UK there are a several CSR standards that have been set for organisations operating in the region. Depending on the industry and the scale of operations that regulations vary.

External Stakeholders of UH Bristol NHS Foundation Trust

Plan for the CSR strategy

Area of focus before planning	· Recognizing the key stakeholders · The issue that has to be targeted with the help of the strategies   · Recognition of the resource requirement and capability in order to implement the strategy
Set the objectives for the strategy	· The mission and vision of the strategies that has to be undertaken · The short term goals defined aligning with the long-term Impact · Aligning the objectives within the legal jurisdictions.
Defining the areas of focus	· Planning a communication · Organizing meetings and consultations with the stakeholders · Aligning the internal and external objective with the CSR strategies · Budget of the strategy · Monitoring and evaluation metric
Reporting	· Formulation of the Sustainability report to be added to the yearly progress report of the company · Metrics will be based on the target that has been set as well as the target that was met in the previous years
Achievement	· Publication of the report (Morgeson et al. 2013).

A.C. 3.1 - Internal reporting measurements that can evaluate the impact of the Corporate Social Responsibility strategy 

Some of the measures that can be taken in order to understand the impact of the CSR strategies are:

• The approach of measurement should be from the perspectives of the capabilities and resources that can be allocated by the company for the strategies. Base on this aspect the goals of the strategies can be set. Therefore the report must mention and internal capability and resource that is required to undertake the plan (Suliman et al. 2016).
• Next step would be to prioritize the aspects that has to measure, it is not possible or it is not rational to be able to accurately measure the impact of difference that the strategy has imposed. Therefore focused should be on collection of data and establishing metrics foundation. It is also essential for the company to stay streamlined in the process of evaluating the impact of the strategies.
• Experts from the people field of the problem area can be consulted in order to understand the impact better. An expert’s opinion on the topic will be insightful and will also help in establishing the facts in a reliable way (Brower and Mahajan 2013).
• Collaboration with third parties will help in determining the output form a unbiased perspective (Suliman et al. 2016)

A.C. 3.2 - External reporting measurements that can evaluate the impact of the Corporate Social Responsibility strategy    

The external report is published by the company in order to communicate and reach out to the external stakeholders of the company in this case, the patients, the shareholders, the suppliers and the government. The measurements that have been taken by the company are as follows:

• There are a number of tables and info-graphics that has been used in the sustainability report to communicate easily with the external stakeholders.
• For the external shareholders the sustainability report is a sub part of the annual report, the company releases an annual report in order to communicate with the stakeholders regarding the progress of the company.  
• Each and every aspect of the aim that the company had set to achieve is mentioned separately in the report along with a Sustainable development management plan. There is also an evaluation score of a third party organisation Good Corporate Citizenship (GCC).  The result that is published by the company acknowledges that the last evaluation was in 2015 and the score was 32 (Uhbristol.nhs.uk 2018).  
• The company has also stated the baseline year in order to keep the readers of the report informed which is since 2007 (Uhbristol.nhs.uk 2018).  This is essential as the reader will be able to evaluate the process accordingly.
• Comparative study of improvement shown in the info-graphics that has been used in the report, this has provided any man with the least understanding of the aspects to determine the impacts of the strategies (Wang et al.2016). Apart from the charts the report also describes the numeric values of the strategies for example, it has been stated that carbon emissions from energy consumption has been reduced by 1822 tonnes (7%) from the last year (Uhbristol.nhs.uk 2018).
• Each and every area of concern that is in the CSR goal of the company has been separately stated in the report, which is a positive for the company as they can acknowledge with data that every aspect has been targeted and the money has been responsibly spent (Farooq et al. 2014)

A.C. 3.3 - Methods to refresh and reinforce the Corporate Social Responsibility strategy  

In order to reinforce the CSR strategies, the company has to come up with short term objectives that would lead to a long term impact. Setting short term objectives helps in reinforcing the strategies that the company has taken (Epstein 2018). For example, the company has the goal to achieve 32 percent reduction in carbon footprint till 2020, therefore the objective should be able to help the company achieve this larger goal in small amounts.

Since the calculation that the company has shown is based on the data that the company has achieved in the previous years there is a clear comparison in case the rate of change in the difference is lower than what is anticipated the strategies should be refreshed in order to meet the desired result.

In order to reinforce some the existing strategies there should be proper communication regarding the old results and the new anticipation. Setting of objectives play an important role in reinforcing the strategies thus the company has to ensure the metrics of evaluation are also revising accordingly (Epstein 2018).

Encourage innovation: in order for a strategy to be refreshed a new approach is required to be implemented, thus the budget of the strategy also needs to be revised. As mentioned above the capability of the company is important measure while evaluating the internal report hence the capabilities should be kept in mind (Farooq et al.2014)

In the process of refreshing the strategies the organisation must have a clear chain of communication among the stakeholders who are impacted with the strategy, for example, if a strategy includes a third party involvement, refreshing the strategy would mean change in the dynamics in between the company and the third party. Therefore, it can be said that communication plays an important role in the process (Kim et al. 2016).

Reference List: 

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Asif, M., Searcy, C., Zutshi, A. and Fisscher, O.A., 2013. An integrated management systems approach to corporate social responsibility. Journal of cleaner production, 56, pp.7-17. 

Primary Activity of UH Bristol NHS Foundation Trust

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