Meeting the needs, interests and expectations of our Stakeholders

Engaging, understanding, responding to and meeting the needs of our stakeholders to create value for them and SANBS

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The SANBS has always valued the contributions of our diverse stakeholders. Through robust engagement, we empower them to assist us in achieving our goals, mitigating risks and optimising opportunities. Stakeholder surveys are undertaken from time to time. Emphasis on these will increase going forward. The information that follows describes our frequency of engagement with our stakeholders, their needs, interests and expectations, risks and opportunities and how we respond to these. We also provide our assessment of the current relationship against a desired relationship and give details of the status of current engagements with our various stakeholders.

We group our stakeholders as follows:
  • Employees – include the people we employ, our Board and the unions that represent our people. Given the important role of each of these stakeholders – details are provided below
  • Donors – these comprise anyone who donates blood, the donor structures including National Council, Zone Donor Committees and branch donor committees. We describe the relationship with blood donors separately below
  • Regulators – comprises of the National Department of Health, SANAS, SAHPRA, SABTS and the ISO Standards
  • Medical fraternity – includes doctors, nurses, patients and medical aid schemes
  • Suppliers
  • SA and international blood partners - Local and international health and transfusion medicine
  • Given the important role the media plays in conveying SANBS’ purpose, adverts etc we include details about them below

Employees

Stakeholder Group
Responsible
Current Relationship
Desired Relationship
Needs, interests & expectations
  • Reward and recognition
  • Conducive and safe working environment/ job satisfaction
  • Job security
  • Growth and development
  • Transformation
  • Diversification
  • Integration
  • Remote and/or WFH capability
  • Regard for overall wellness
Key Risks

  • Loss of key employees
  • Disengaged Employees and underperformance
  • Industrial action
  • Damage to SANBS' reputation by disengaged employees
  • Lack of disclosure or transparency
Opportunities

  • Empower and engage
  • Skills development
  • Diverse and inclusive workforce
  • Multiskilling – cross functional teamwork
  • Performance management
  • Recognition and Reward
  • Building trust
SANBS Response
Status of Current Engagements

BOARD

Stakeholder Group
Responsible
Current Relationship
Desired Relationship
Needs, interests & expectations
  • Relevant. accurate and timeous information and reporting
  • Achievement of strategic objectives
  • Improved governance and ethics
Key Risks

  • Transparency
  • Inaccurate reporting
  • Under performance
  • Poor decision making
  • Potential liability for directors
Opportunities

  • Integrated business planning
  • Digitalisation
  • Organisational alignment and transformation
  • Creation of blood committee
SANBS Response
Status of Current Engagements

EMPLOYEES: UNIONS

Stakeholder Group
Responsible
Current Relationship
Desired Relationship
Needs, interests & expectations
  • Fair and equitable working conditions
  • Employee safety
  • Annual wage negotiations
  • Transparency
  • Consultation
  • Fair and equitable remuneration
Key Risks

  • Misaligned expectations
  • Industrial action
  • Negative publicity
  • Reputation damage
  • Genie coefficient
Opportunities

  • Improved working conditions
  • Improved engagement and planned meetings
  • Greater understanding of the SANBS environment
  • Further transparency in Integrated Report to build trust
SANBS Response
Status of Current Engagements

DONORS: BLOOD DONORS

Stakeholder Group
Responsible
Current Relationship
Desired Relationship
Needs, interests & expectations
  • Donor pool
  • Iron deficiency
  • Platelet donors
  • Adequate donor
  • Health and education
  • Donor satisfaction levels
Key Risks

  • Insufficient pool – over bleeding
  • Donor health issues
  • Unhappy donors
  • Donor retention
  • Reputation of SANBS
  • SANBS employee sabotage
  • Eligible donors
Opportunities

  • Sustainability
  • Diversified donor pool
  • Synthetic blood
  • Pathogen inactivation
  • More frequent donations
  • Digitalisation
  • Donor education and experience (SANBS Theme Park)
SANBS Response
Status of Current Engagements

DONORS: National Council, Zone Donor Committees, Branch Donor Committees

Stakeholder Group
Responsible
Current Relationship
Desired Relationship
Needs, interests & expectations
  • Donor interests and wellbeing taken into account
  • SANBS carries out its mandate effectively
Key Risks

  • Not adhering to prescribed governance rules and structures
  • Ineffective interaction between management and the committees
Opportunities

  • Leverage the passion and commitment of Committee members to increase our donor base
SANBS Response
Status of Current Engagements

REGULATORS: National Department of Health

Stakeholder Group
Responsible
Current Relationship
Desired Relationship
Needs, interests & expectations
  • Improved patient outcome
  • Improved healthcare
  • Sufficient quality blood products
  • Right product, right patient and right time
  • Monitoring of side effects
  • Information and escalation of all major decisions
Key Risks

  • Loss of licence to operate
  • Inability to meet demand
  • Morbidity/Mortality
  • Transfusion transmitted infections
  • Poor patient outcomes
  • Increased costs
  • Delayed payments
Opportunities

  • Efficiencies
  • Digitalisation
  • Pathogen inactivation
  • Product & service diversity
  • Reduce wastage
  • Use of big data
SANBS Response
Status of Current Engagements

REGULATORS: SA National Accreditation System (SANAS)
SA National Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) ISO Standards, SABTS

Stakeholder Group
Responsible
Current Relationship
Desired Relationship
Needs, interests & expectations
  • Compliance
  • Global interaction
  • Harmonising of standards world wide
Key Risks

  • Loss of licence to practise
  • Loss of trust from key stakeholder
Opportunities

  • Improve the quality our products and services
  • Global collaboration
SANBS Response
Status of Current Engagements

MEDICAL FRATERNITY: Doctors, Nurses, Patients, Medical Aid Schemes

Stakeholder Group
Responsible
Current Relationship
Desired Relationship
Needs, interests & expectations
  • Sufficient quality blood products
  • Other services stem cells, diversity of products
  • Customer satisfaction levels
Key Risks

  • Insufficient blood stocks – morbidity & mortality
  • Insufficient quality
  • Unhappy customers
  • Reputation of SANBS
Opportunities

  • New income streams
  • SANBS RAD Academy
  • Big Data
  • Digitalisation
SANBS Response
Status of Current Engagements

SUPPLIERS

Stakeholder Group
Responsible
Current Relationship
Desired Relationship
Needs, interests & expectations
  • Safe transportation of blood
  • Effective logistics management
  • Quality packaging and cold chain management
  • Availability of medical consumables and testing agents
  • Integrity of information
  • Value for money
  • Payments for goods and services rendered
Key Risks

  • Goods and services not delivered at the right time, right quality and as per specifications
  • Product quality failure and wastage
  • Delayed or no blood delivery to patients
  • Cyber security risk
  • System downtime
  • Increased costs
  • Poor contract management
  • Lack of B-BBEE
Opportunities

  • Formal engagement plan for critical vendors
  • Efficiencies
  • Improved supply chain management
  • Just-in-time inventory management
  • Digitalisation
  • Improved contract management
  • Encourage B-BBEE
SANBS Response
Status of Current Engagements

SA AND INTERNATIONAL BLOOD PARTNERS: Business Partners

Stakeholder Group
Responsible
Current Relationship
Desired Relationship
Needs, interests & expectations
  • National supply management
  • Collaboration in seamless national product and service delivery
  • Alignment of quality and safety
  • Ensuring product availability
Key Risks

  • Disparate approach to common challenges
  • Increased legal risk in the absence of collaboration
  • Reputation
Opportunities

  • Integrated South African blood services
  • Improved service delivery
SANBS Response
Status of Current Engagements
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SA AND INTERNATIONAL BLOOD PARTNERS: Local and International Health and Transfusion Medicine

Stakeholder Group
Responsible
Current Relationship
Desired Relationship
Needs, interests & expectations
  • Better understanding of African and resource constrained countries’ transfusion medicine needs
  • Appreciation of the role of blood transfusion services as a cornerstone of healthcare delivery in South Africa
  • Input from SANBS in developing transfusion medicine related guidelines
Key Risks

  • Lack of SANBS representation in key local and international decision making affecting blood service delivery
  • Inability to influence the strategic vision of organisations affecting blood service delivery
Opportunities

  • Showcase the work of SANBS at conferences and in publications of these organisations
  • Improve SANBS reputation as a centre of excellence globally
  • Continuous quality improvement through participation in expert committees
SANBS Response
Status of Current Engagements

Media

Stakeholder Group
Responsible
Current Relationship
Desired Relationship
Needs, interests & expectations
  • Reputation/goodwill
  • Education and awareness
  • Accurate and effective communication
  • Public Image
Key Risks

  • Negative publicity
  • Poor brand value and reputation
  • Poor communications to stakeholders
Opportunities

  • Positive brand value
  • Increased positive coverage
  • Free airtime – social media platforms
  • Bloggers
SANBS Response
Status of Current Engagements

The SANBS has always valued the contributions of our diverse stakeholders. Through robust engagement, we empower them to assist us in achieving our goals, mitigating risks and optimising opportunities.

 Stakeholder engagement is monitored by the Governance, Social and Ethics Committee.