Contributing to a sustainable and equitable future
As a health and social care provider, our core purpose is to support people to live their lives as fully and independently as possible – providing high quality care with excellent outcomes, while contributing to a sustainable and equitable future for all.
By embedding the principals of ESG within our strategy, we seek to:
- Positively impact and protect the communities where we are active
- Hold ourselves and our leadership to account through transparent, ethical practices
- Benefit the health and wellbeing of the people in our care, our colleagues, and our wider stakeholders
In September 2022 we launched the Priory Plan which sets out our vision and how we will achieve our seven strategic goals by 2025, these include:
- To embed a culture of openness, inclusion and trust where people feel they belong
- To focus on sustainable funding and growth that supports our services and uses resources efficiently
Environmental (E)
We are committed to reducing our carbon footprint by implementing energy-efficient practices, using renewable energy sources, reducing consumption and limiting waste.
We have a sustainable approach to procurement and aim to minimise our impact on the environment by using products and services that meet eco-friendly standards, from organisations that have positive social impact.
Carbon reduction
Our goal is to reduce our carbon footprint by 25% by 2025 – a 5% reduction each year from 2022 onwards. We have made great progress so far:
- 100% of the electricity we use at 300 hospitals and homes from renewable sources
- In 2023, 99.93% of the waste collected by our waste disposal supplier Veolia, has been diverted from landfill and 34.39% of the waste has been recycled
- We are replacing our oil boilers with LPG boilers and air source heat pumps
- We continue to install LED lighting across our sites
- As a benefit for Priory colleagues who qualify, you can buy a new electric car via salary sacrifice
- We are using paper that is more environmentally conscious
- Through our ‘Priory Green’ initiative we are encouraging all our colleagues to reduce, reuse and recycle
In 2024, we are also implementing photovoltaic (solar) panels across many of our sites to convert sunlight into electricity. The first installation at Priory Hospital Barnt Green will prevent 14 tonnes of carbon being emitted at the site each year.
It forms part of the wider Priory Green initiative, which will see similar developments take place across 80 hospitals and care homes throughout the UK over the next two years, with electricity bills set to reduce by £2 million per year as a result.
You can read more about this here.
Social (S)
Ensuring the safety the people we care for is our priority, and we continually strive to improve outcomes, and the experiences of our patients and residents.
We are dedicated to fostering an inclusive and diverse workplace too, promoting equal opportunities and prioritising the health and wellbeing of our colleagues. Training and development is an important focus for us to ensure all Priory colleagues can progress and enhance their careers.
Our colleague networks
We have nine colleague networks at Priory that provide a space for peer-to-peer connection, and support those with shared lived experiences and identities. They are run by colleagues and create a safe, supportive forum to raise awareness of any issues identified by colleagues or barriers they feel are inhibiting their progress. The networks include:
- Women
- Menopause
- BME
- Parents
- LGBTQ+
- Men that talk
- Disability and Difference
- Neurodiversity
- Armed Forces
Co-production
We strive to actively involve patients, residents and carers in decisions about their care, support and the delivery of our service. We have established a patient reference group and residents group, and work closely with experts by lived experience and involve the people we support in activities like patient safety peer reviews. They also play a vital role in our hospital governance forums. Within our social care services, the ‘our voice’ initiative supports colleagues to obtain feedback from the people we support in a meaningful way.
Charitable fundraising
With sites across the country, we support our colleagues to raise money for causes that are important to them and share their successes. Other ways we support charitable fundraising include:
- Pennies from Heaven: Priory colleagues can choose to automatically donate the pennies from their salary by rounding up their salary to the nearest pound and donating this amount to our chosen partner charity, Mind UK.
- Colleague Engagement Survey: For every colleague who completes our annual survey, we donate £1 to charity. In 2023 we donated the money we raised to Cancer Research UK (as voted for by colleagues), Mind UK and the National Autistic Society.
- Supporting global causes: In 2021 we raised £15,558 for humanitarian support in Ukraine
Sharing expertise
As a leading provider of mental health and adult social care, we take our responsibilities seriously. We create accurate and authoritative content that you can trust and share this via our communications channels and the media. In this way we can add to the wealth of health information available online and share the inspiring stories of the people we have supported.
Governance (G)
We maintain a transparent and accountable governance structure, and adhere to the highest ethical standards in decision-making, regulatory compliance, and financial management. This includes:
- Working closely and transparently with our regulators and funders to ensure safe, high quality care
- Monitoring our own services consistently through our quality assurance processes, including regular audits
- Publishing our regulator reports, ratings and an annual quality account for our healthcare service
- Listening to our patients, residents, carers and colleagues so we can improve our services
- Independent oversight in the UK from our non-executive directors
You can read our Supplier Code of Conduct by clicking here
As of 1st June 2024, Priory have a new process for on-boarding suppliers. If you are interested in becoming a supplier to Priory, please register on our platform via this link:
Please note that registration does not guarantee you will become a Priory approved vendor.