GSK Romania: Helping people live longer

GSK Romania is an extremely focused organization. Here's the reason. 

"Romanians continue to have one of the lowest life expectancy rates in the European Union, with 77.3 years on average for women, the lowest in the EU, and 69.8 for men, second lowest after the Baltic countries, according to OECD Health at a Glance 2012 data. Heart, circulatory and respiratory diseases and cancer are the main causes of death in Romania. The infant mortality rate in Romania (deaths of infants under one year old per 1,000 live births) is double the average European rate."

Isn't that a compelling motivator for a healthcare company? It's at the core of GSK Romania's business and corporate responsibility activities. You can read more in GSK Romania's 3rd annual Corporate Responsibility Report (and second report in accordance with GRI G4 core guidelines) that was published just this week. Once again, I supported GSK Romania in developing and preparing this report. It's always inspiring to work with a company so committed to making a positive impact.

Life expectancy
Romania is a country in Southeast Central Europe with a population of almost 20 million in an area of around 238,000 square kilometers. The world life expectancy map, which is based on World Health Organization statistics from 2011, shows that Romania is ranked the 78th country in the world for life expectancy - up to four years lower than most other countries in the European Union. Only Latvia and Lithuania have a slightly lower rate. It's not just about length of life - a few more years here or there. It's also about the quality of life... healthy life expectancy. GSK Romania has a mission to advance health and well-being in Romania by supporting healthcare infrastructure and patients through awareness, education, supply of innovative medicines and healthcare products. 

Locally relevant 
A significant part of the problem in Romania is the lack of consistent government priority for healthcare funding and reform of the healthcare infrastructure. Many governmental changes have led to discontinuity in policy reforms and lack of progress in critical healthcare development over several years, such as a revision of the reimbursement list of medicines to enable access to life-saving new drugs for patients in Romania. This is the context in which a local company, part of a leading global healthcare concern, operates. This is why it is important for the local subsidiary to know the unique local conditions, needs, challenges and expectations, and ensure that its business and corporate responsibility strategy is aligned with the local, not only global, needs of society. Drawing on a wealth of resource, innovation, capability and policy direction at global level, GSK locally has the opportunity to make a big difference to the lives of Romanians... not only the length of their lives but also the quality of life and the way people are able to enjoy healthy lifestyles. This is the real value of local reporting. It's a reflection of the engagement, planning and delivery of local positive impact. GSK Romania has been committed to doing this since its start in Romania since 1989, and has been publicly reporting on progress for the past three years. 

Supporting healthcare imperatives
An example of a defining local issue, very relevant to the state of healthcare in Romania, is the doctor exodus. In a country with a low rate of medical doctors in proportion to the population needs (Romania has 2.4 doctors per 1,000 citizens, one of the lowest rates in Europe and well below the average of 3.6 doctors), Romania has been suffering from an exodus of doctors which has reached a level of more than 14,000 doctors in the past few years, who seek to make a better living in other countries where they can be paid more, gain access to professional learning and development and feel respected and valued in their profession. In many cases, due to the challenges they face in Romania, they have been packing up and leaving. This is undermining the quality of healthcare services and accessibility to treatments for patients. GSK Romania has supported an initiative designed to reverse this trend - a campaign called “My profession: doctor in Romania”, driven by the Foreign Investors Council, through the Council's Healthcare Task-force which is led by GSK Romania. The campaign aims to build widespread recognition for the role of doctors in Romania and provide practical support, including through new legislation, to encourage doctors to stay in the country for the benefit of Romanian patients. The campaign projects positive examples of doctors who decided to stay in Romania and has received widespread attention through active media communications and even won a European marketing award. This specific issue in Romania is just one of the areas GSK Romania is connecting with local healthcare imperatives and using its resources, leverage and commitment to improve the situation.

Apel pentru companii - Pascal Prigent from De Profesie Medic on Vimeo.

Check out the video above (it's in English) with former GSK Romania General Manager Pascal Prigent at the launch of the "My profession: doctor in Romania" campaign, in which he explains that healthcare is a critical part of the economy. GSK Romania's continuing role in supporting the campaign is now led by GSK Romania's current General Manager, Barbara Cygler. 

The GSK Romania CR Report for 2013 is aligned with the global reporting style, tone, look and feel of the GSK parent company while specifically showcasing locally relevant performance and impacts relating to the many ways GSK Romania supports local healthcare for the benefit of local patients and the way GSK Romania does business. Rather than me running through all the highlights in a loooong narrative in this post, take a look at the following infographic:

 

 

 

Stakeholder commentaries

GSK Romania's 2013 report also includes insights from several external expert stakeholders who were interviewed individually and provided personal views to help GSK Romania review and refresh its material focus and reconfirm its strategic direction. All these stakeholder insights are recorded in full in the report appendix (Pages 62-64) but here are some highlights:

GSK Romania remains one of the few local companies in Romania - and I believe still the only one in the Romanian pharma sector - to publicly disclose its performance and practices.

Take a look. Give feedback.



elaine cohen, CSR consultant, Sustainability Reporter, HR Professional, Ice Cream Addict. Author of Understanding G4: the Concise guide to Next Generation Sustainability Reporting  AND  Sustainability Reporting for SMEs: Competitive Advantage Through Transparency AND CSR for HR: A necessary partnership for advancing responsible business practices . Contact me via Twitter (@elainecohen)  or via my business website www.b-yond.biz   (Beyond Business Ltd, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm).  Check out our G4 Report Expert Analysis Service - for published G4 reports or pre-publication - write to Elaine at info@b-yond.biz to help make your G4 reporting  even better. 

A new G4 Report all about TRUST

I was just reading a post from the indefatigable Barbara Kimmel Brooks who is the key mover and shaker behind Trust in America TM, an organization that is leading some truly inspiring work in the area of building and educating about trust in business. The post is called The Hard Costs of Low Trust. It provides some startling statistics about the ways in which lack of trust can be so very costly to a business, as well as the opportunity for profitable growth that high trust can bring. 

The reason the post by Barbara Kimmel Brooks resonated so specifically with me is that, today, GSK Romania launches its second corporate responsibility report covering its business in 2012, and the title is "Valuing your Trust". 

This is the same title as the first report of GSK Romania, published last year. GSK Romania is my client and I supported the writing of the first report and of this current one. In preparation for the 2012 report, I asked the GM of GSK Romania, Pascal Prigent, if we should change the title and use another theme more relevant to the current GSK activities and recent sustainability performance in Romania. "No", he said. "Trust is something that last longer than a year or the life of one report. It's just as important a message this year as it was last year. People change, our market circumstances change, our business objectives may change, but valuing the trust of our stakeholders here in Romania is part of the way we do business. In fact, it's absolutely critical for doing business. I think retaining the title this year continues to reinforce the relevance of trust". So, Valuing your Trust won the day. 

In fact, as I have come to know GSK in Romania, I can appreciate both the ways in which the company works in order to engender trust, as well as the necessity of doing so in the healthcare climate in Romania. Romania has some of the most critical healthcare challenges in all of Europe including the highest infant mortality rate and some of the highest rates of chronic disease in Europe. Even a simple thing such as oral health, improved by daily brushing of your teeth, is not widespread in some parts of Romania, due to lack of education and awareness.

A company such as GSK may have important global priorities addressing some of the world's most serious healthcare challenges (GSK is the best performing company in the Access to Medicine Index 2012), but the local challenges faced by the Romanian subsidiary are no less important, and yes, even in Europe, there is much to be done. The challenge is not about selling more drugs. The challenge is to help support the healthcare infrastructure, so that the people get healthier, live better, and build a strong economy in which healthcare has a respected place. Enhancing access to the medicines that people need in an equitable, service-oriented healthcare system strengthens the economy as well as the people. GSK's local engagement in Romania is about continuing to build trust in a positive way with all local stakeholders in order to be able to continue contributing to this shared objective. If that happens, GSK Romania will gain a positive outcome: better business. The focus is on patients. Invest in them and everyone benefits. Everyone I have spoken to in GSK Romania – that's all the senior management and tens of managers in their teams – have a passion for this higher purpose. They both value trust and understand the value of trust. 

GSK Romania employs around 1,000 people in Romania, in pharma and consumer health businesses, supported by a GSK distribution company, Europharm Distribution, and a manufacturing plant in Brasov. GSK Romania launched this second report with the objective of transparently disclosing its material sustainability performance in 2012. It's a G4 CORE level report, one of the first in the world –I count less than 15 published G4 CORE level reports to date.

The report was written to align with GSK's global reporting (see GSK plc's global report for 2012 here) and is structured accordingly into four main narrative sections: Health for all, Our behavior, Our People, Our Planet, and supplemented by sections on the state of healthcare in Romania, governance and stakeholder engagement.

As part of the materiality process, we held, in Bucharest, for the first time, I believe, in Romania, a stakeholder engagement round table dialogue, to which several healthcare experts representing government, NGOs, community partners, media and more were invited for open discussions about what's important to them and their expectations of GSK Romania. Although my Romanian is not what it could be (I haven't even learned the Romania for "ice-cream" yet!), I was able to participate a little and also observe passionate discussions and hear summaries in English. Both participants and the GSK participating managers (who agreed to this process not without some trepidation) agree that this had been a truly valuable exchange, and important insights were gained which are helpful for GSK's strategy going forward. 

GSK selected 17 material issues as the focus of this G4 report.

Some stories from GSK Romania's report this year:

• GSK products reached 20 million consumers and patients in Romania. 
• Every day, almost 3,000 doses of GSK vaccines were delivered to Romanians to protect their health. 
• 62% of the workforce were women and 62% of managers were women. 
• GSK moved to a direct distribution system to pharmacies, in order to increase availability of medicines, with results after one year showing that instances of out-of-stock reduced from 75% to 38%, and an increase of 23% in pharmacies that did not experience a single out-of-stock during a 12 month period. 
• GSK partnered with the Ministry of Health and the Foreign Investors council and led a campaign to address one of the most serious challenges for healthcare in Romania: the migration of healthcare professionals out of Romania. Over 14,000 doctors have left Romania to work abroad since 2007. GSK led the development and launch of the campaign "My profession: Doctor in Romania" to focus public attention on the issues and help retain doctors in Romania. 
• GSK Romania partnered with the Romanian Paediatric Society to launch a program to support child healthcare focused nutrition, safety and vaccination. 
• GSK published its entire set of ethical policies online in a new Ethical Platform section on the GSK Romania website. Absolute transparency in the way GSK works is now available for all. 
• In 2012, GSK Romania advanced two creative and highly effective patient advocacy campaigns to support patients with HIV and lupus. 
• Following the announcement to close GSK's manufacturing plant in Brasov by 2015, GSK has put plans in place to support all of the factory's 243 employees and help them through this transition and take up other options. 
• As a healthcare company, GSK Romania invests in the health of its own employees and launched a new Partnership for Prevention health program so that employees can feel better, do more and live longer. 
• GSK Romania reduced energy consumption relative to business growth and achieved a 5% absolute reduction in water consumption. 100% of waste is recycled or incinerated – none is sent to landfill.    

Take a look at Valuing your Trust. Please give feedback.

In the meantime, catch Pascal Prigent, GM GSK Romania, talking about the report:




PS: Come meet the folks from GSK plc and GSK Romania speaking at the Smarter Sustainability Reporting Conference on 25th February 2014 in London. Contact me for a registration discount!

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, winning (CRRA'12) Sustainability Reporter, HR Professional, Ice Cream Addict. Author of Understanding G4: the Concise guide to Next Generation Sustainability Reporting  AND  Sustainability Reporting for SMEs: Competitive Advantage Through Transparency AND CSR for HR: A necessary partnership for advancing responsible business practices . Contact me at www.twitter.com/elainecohen   or via my business website www.b-yond.biz   (Beyond Business Ltd, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm)