31 March 2014
Peter Aldous welcomed the Cabinet Office Minister responsible for promoting social enterprise, Rt Hon Francis Maude, MP, as he paid a visit to ECCH’s headquarters, meeting staff and its leadership - who own the business.
 
They spoke with staff about the high quality services ECCH provides, and to see for themselves how being a social enterprise has turned ECCH into a local success story.
 
East Coast Community Healthcare provides NHS community health services such as district nursing and community hospitals, plus nationally acclaimed health visiting and children’s services and health improvement services for both Norfolk and Suffolk county council. It has more than 900 staff, including nurses, occupational health and physiotherapists, podiatrists, health visitors, speech and language therapists, sexual health specialists, school nurses and stop smoking specialists. 
 
East Coast Community Healthcare is owned by the staff and ploughs all its surplus monies back into its services to benefit the communities it serves. 
 
Francis Maude said: “Every part of the public sector is having to adapt to tough economic times and look at innovative ways of delivering public services. We know that mutuals and joint ventures, SMEs and the voluntary sector can offer better value for money and better quality public services. Social enterprises like ECCH have a big role to play in building a more diverse marketplace of suppliers.
 
“Peter Aldous and I have followed the work of ECCH closely. Since it became an employee-owned social enterprise, it has delivered significant improvements in the healthcare services for local patients, demonstrating the effectiveness and flexibility of this model.”
 
Mr Aldous added: "I am grateful to Francis Maude for visiting ECCH, who are providing important and much needed services across the area.” 
 
In 2013, ECCH was ‘Highly Commended’ in the Philip Baxendale awards for the Best Public Sector Mutual Organisation. 
 
The Chairman of ECCH, Paul Steward, said: “We are very pleased and proud that Mr Maude and Mr Aldous asked to visit our social enterprise.
“We believe we have made a real difference for our local communities by changing the way we work and investing in local services. We could only have been so dynamic and different by being a social enterprise. It has given the freedom and flexibility to work for our communities and our commissioners.”
 
Staff Director, Teresa Gooch, a senior physiotherapist, said: "We are passionate about the care and services we provide but an important difference is that as a social enterprise we are owned by our staff, for the benefit of our patients.”
 
For example since 2011, ECCH has invested about £1.2 million to enable staff to work differently to benefit patients. It introduced mobile working, new IT infrastructure and an innovative new model for integrated health and social care teams, who are able to offer more seamless care. 
 
In the December floods ECCH supported local private care homes to ensure patients were OK and it placed staff in rest centres to look after people whose homes had been evacuated. 
 
And ECCH has recently been commissioned to expand its out of hospital team in Lowestoft  - more nurses, therapists and healthcare assistants to help local people remain safe and well in their own homes.
 
Kate Gill, from HealthEast, the NHS Clinical Commissioning Group in Great Yarmouth and Waveney, said: “We’re delighted that Mr Maude chose to visit East Coast Community Healthcare.  We are commissioning innovative out of hospital services from ECCH, which will work in an integrated way across health and social care, and give a real boost to helping people remain independently at home, particularly if they are older or have serious health problems.”  
 
ECCH is one of the largest private employers and social enterprises in the region. Prior to 1st October 2011 ECCH was part of NHS Great Yarmouth and Waveney. 
 
Being a social enterprise means ECCH has two staff Directors who are members of The Board. Staff have been able to vote how to spend surplus money, they are encouraged to contribute ideas to develop the organisation and they can vote on major issues at the Annual General Meeting.