The Governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, paid a visit to the Halo building in May where he met our CFO, Nick Read, and Group Laboratory Director, Tim Herriman.

As part of their work on briefing the Monetary Policy Committee, which sets interest rates, the Bank of England (BoE) routinely engages with businesses to discuss, in confidence, economic performance, and to listen to the business view of the local and national economy.

Nick, who is on the panel that liaises with BoE, was asked by the Governor’s team if he could visit to get some understanding of the work we do, and the operational environment that we work within, including any trends and challenges we experience.

During the meeting, Nick and Tim outlined Sonic Healthcare UK’s activities in the private sector as TDL, and the work we do with the NHS through HSL.

He was also briefed on how each part of the business is faring both after the Covid-19 pandemic, and the full implementation of the Brexit border controls in the past two years.

 

Our story of continual investment in people and infrastructure

“The Governor was very interested to learn about our new apprenticeship scheme, the Sonic Training Academy, and how we develop staff skills and recruit experts in a labour market that is dominated by the NHS.”

Tim added, “We were pleased to explain that where many sectors of the UK economy have cut back on investment post-Covid, we continue to invest in people, new equipment, and premises - with the aim of continually improving the service we provide to our clinical customers, and ultimately to improve patient care.”

After initial discussions, Tim conducted a tour of the first few levels of the Halo to give the Governor an insight into the processes and equipment we use. He was interested to learn more about the BBV testing the NHS is now conducting routinely - particularly the fact that while the programme minimally increases costs for the NHS in the short term, the value it provides to an affected patient is actually far greater because of the detection of these diseases they may not be aware they were carrying.

The Governor was clearly very engaged with the Sonic Healthcare UK operation.