Merger, Acquisition and Integration

Mergers, Acquisition & Integration in the NHS has been going on since the mid 1990’s.  This has recently picked up pace with new ‘super’ trusts now becoming £B organisations with sometimes 3 or more hospital sites.  These mergers also take on two or more cultures.

The drivers for these mergers, acquisition & Integration have been many.  At best, they are for economies of service for service specialisation or to meet guidelines required for good clinical governance, ie, a system for assuring the quality of clinical services.  At worst, it brings together financially challenged Trusts in the hope that a merger will “sort things out”.

Nevertheless, difficulties occur invariably in all mergers that might have been prevented.  In the stampede to get business cases and clinical strategies up and running, less attention has been paid to HR Management aspects of a merger.  Not necessarily with the staff consultation processes nor the post merger HR implementation plans but specifically with what is termed- the psychological contract.  Strategic HR Solutions refers to this as ‘Training the Mind!’

Hospital strategists in the form of an Integration or Programme Director, recruited specifically for both transactional & transformational aspects of a merger need to give due regard to the organisational proposition (defined elsewhere on this website)

So what outcome areas are we referring to:

• - a culture that enables performance & change in the mind of staff
• - a culture for a commercially savvy organisation
• - a culture of an agile & change ready organisation
• - engaged & empowered people
  
  

These aspects compliment business as usual.  At Strategic HR Solutions we will be at the centre of a merger, acquisition or integration through enhanced staff levels & knowledge in ‘Training the Mind’. More systematically shared and contributing to increased levels of stakeholder satisfaction and improved business outcomes.