Expertise in the North Sea oil and gas industry is abundant and it’s easy to see why. As a complex sector that has evolved and fine-tuned itself over the last 50 years, it continues to meet the bulk (almost 60%) of UK oil and gas demand and support – that’s more than 280,000 jobs in the supply chain.
Much of this expertise remains focused on this particular region and for good reason.
When it comes to supporting the health agenda of a workforce, it’s vital to understand the geography of the North Sea offshore energy sector and its specific healthcare requirements, as well as the legislative and best practices associated with the delivery of healthcare.
It enables companies to build a local integrated supply chain; leveraging relationships to provide a broad, scalable, efficient model, develop personal relationships with relevant parties, including the NHS or alternative healthcare provider.
This integrated approach enables collaboration between clients, business partners, and regulatory bodies.
Establishing and maintaining this level of region-specific expertise is not without its challenges.
In order to maintain a consistent focus on innovation and improvement and avoid becoming stale, service providers must still think globally
and not just locally.
And a geographical focus can impede efforts to ensure clinical continuity, succession planning and attracting talent – these are elements we have tried to tackle through our investment in an innovative medic training academy.
But with oil and gas being a global industry, there is a real opportunity to take healthcare expertise honed in the UK to the international stage, projecting excellence as a benchmark.
As service providers, we can not only look at this from our own company perspective, but also when we support clients as they develop.
Of course, it is far from simple, not least because a cookie cutter approach is ill-advised: Some regions will offer less developed clinical infrastructure where the services are not fully aligned with the first world facilities a UK-based organisation will be accustomed to.
A considered expansion strategy will ensure efforts to diversify healthcare to new geographical regions will be ripe with potential. We support this by adding value with security, health risk and assistance through our partners.
It comes down to upscaling your business model in order to deliver service excellence and industry best practice to current clients in new geographies. At the same, it is vital to develop region-specific service frameworks as different regions require different scopes of delivery.
The key steps to developing a global portfolio include ensuring strategic alignment with the client strategy; ensuring there is sufficient health infrastructure in new locations to meet the needs of clients; and assessment of local clinics and facilities.
Capacity building is crucial to understand the local regulatory requirements and, where required, to employ appropriately qualified local staff.
It is essential to ensure that any global expansion does not negatively impact existing operations.
At Iqarus, we have our UK infrastructure in place and replicate this standard globally with our partners. This enables consistent high quality of service delivery without impacting existing operations coupled with a robust continuous service improvement programme.
