[Skip to Content]
Wirral University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

Modern Slavery Act

Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Act 2015 Annual Statement – 2023

Section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 requires all organisations to set out the steps it has taken during the financial year to ensure that slavery and human trafficking is not taking place in any of its supply chains, and in any part of its own business.

The aim of this statement is to demonstrate that the Trust follows good practice, and all reasonable steps are being taken to prevent slavery and human trafficking.

Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust provides a comprehensive range of high quality acute care services, our more than 6,200 strong workforce serves a population in excess of 400,000 people across Wirral, Ellesmere Port, Neston, North Wales and the wider Northwest footprint. We operate across two main sites, these being Arrowe Park Hospital in Upton and Clatterbridge Hospital in Bebington.  We also provide a range of outpatient services from community locations at St Catherine’s Health Centre in Birkenhead and Victoria Central Health Centre in Wallasey.

The Trust has well established and robust recruitment and vetting procedures and seeks to ensure that suppliers operate in accordance with the provisions of the Modern Slavery Act.

The Trust has a total non-pay spend of c.£130m on goods, equipment and services. The Trust aims to achieve value for money and to promote social values through its contracting and purchasing activity, and the effective utilisation of the Trust’s spend contributes significantly to the quality of the patient environment and patient care.

The Trust supports the eradication of Modern Slavery through its procurement procedures and processes and is clear that it expects all potential suppliers to be fully compliant with the provisions of the Modern Slavery Act.

The Trust recognises that whilst there are laws in place to punish incidents of modern slavery, there is an opportunity to use its purchasing power to help prevent, identify and manage the risks of it occurring in its supply chain by adopting new processes and procedures in both its procurement activity and supplier management.

The Trust has adopted a number of measures already, which include:

  • The use of Public Sector Frameworks where there is strong awareness of and monitoring for Modern Slavery in the supply chain.
  • The mandatory exclusion of any bidder that has been convicted of a human trafficking offence, and the Trust’s contracts include
  • The inclusion of terms and conditions conferring a legal responsibility on Contractors to support that same objective to eradicate slavery and human trafficking.

We acknowledge that these measures can be strengthened in line with the Procurement Policy Note PPN02/2023 (Tackling Modern Slavery in Government Supply Chains) so that:

  • There is a better and wider understanding of the risk and the sectors identified as being at high risk of modern slavery.
  • We identify and manage the risks when procuring new contracts-using a proportionate and risk assessed approach.
  • Risks are managed in existing contracts and arrangements.
  • Procurement staff are appropriately trained so that there is a consistent level of understanding of the issues; that they are able to recognise and effectively manage procurement activity where there is a potential risk and are able to deploy mitigating strategies to reduce the possibility of modern slavery occurring in the Trust’s supply chain.

Our approach will be monitored and reviewed in line with the provisions of the Trust’s Procurement Strategy.

The Board approved this statement at its meeting on the 7th June 2023.

 

Sir David Henshaw                                                                   Janelle Holmes

Chair                                                                                      Chief Executive Officer