OUR BUSINESS

Materiality Determination Process and Material Matters

OUR BUSINESS

Materiality Determination Process and Material Matters

In today's rapidly changing environment, understanding our key issues (material matters) is essential for creating value in the short, medium, and long-term. These issues shape our strategy, risk management, and the opportunities we pursue as we aim for sustainability.

Our approach to identifying these key issues includes three main steps:

Identification through Collaboration

  • Analysing our context: We evaluate both internal and external factors.
  • Engagement: We work closely with internal and external stakeholders to identify material interests, emerging risks, and opportunities.
  • Resource evaluation: We consider various resources (financial, intellectual, manufactured, human, social and relationship, and natural capitals) that affect our business model.
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Prioritisation through Engagement

  • Impact analysis: We identify themes that significantly create value and sustainability.
  • Executive Committee (Exco) discussions: We facilitate conversations with Exco and senior management to ensure integrated thinking.
  • Board insights: We engage with the Board for insights on key issues discussed in committee meetings.
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Monitoring through Governance Structures

  • Exco oversight: The Executive Committee oversees the material matters before presenting them to the Board for approval.
  • Board responsibility: The Board has the ultimate responsibility for tracking progress on these matters.
  • Sub-committee accountability: The Board assigns oversight of specific issues to relevant sub-committees.
  • Performance measurement: We use Key Performance Indicators in our Balanced Scorecard to track results for each strategic priority.
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1. Access to Highly Specialised/Portable/Scarce Skills

Importance and Risks in Value Creation for SANBS

The healthcare sector is grappling with a severe shortage of skilled professionals, and SANBS is not exempt from this challenge. Securing and retaining a highly specialised workforce with the right leadership and future-oriented skills is critical for us to fulfil our mission and adapt to a dynamic environment.

This talent shortage presents us with several hurdles: ensuring a pipeline of talent through effective succession planning, mitigating the loss of valuable institutional knowledge, and navigating an intensified competition for skilled professionals due to poaching of employees both locally and internationally. Furthermore, accreditation limitations restrict our ability to train new Phlebotomists in our laboratories, and the increasing number of nurses leaving the country further exacerbates the staffing shortage in our blood donation and cellular therapies areas.

Opportunities and Strategic Response to Create Value

  • Enhancing employee engagement: Through CEO Family Meetings, we foster open dialogue, crucial for maintaining high employee engagement
  • Leadership pipeline development: Refreshed succession dashboards and ongoing senior management discussions bolster leadership preparedness
  • Skills development: The RAD Academy's updated learning portal promotes self-directed learning, empowering employees with future-ready skills
  • Dual career pathways: Facilitating career growth through internal mobility opportunities harnesses existing talent effectively
  • Recognition and rewards: A revamped reward strategy and informal recognition to celebrate exceptional performance
  • Streamlined recruitment: Redesigned processes enhance applicant and manager experiences, attracting top-tier talent

Outlook for the Year Ahead

  • Skills development: Addressing the skills shortage, particularly within laboratory settings, is a priority. We will continue to promote our RAD Academy offerings and explore various strategies, including internal upskilling programmes and strategic partnerships with academic institutions
  • Building a strong partnership with the HPCSA: Developing our future workforce is a critical priority. Building a strong partnership with the HPCSA is vital to streamline the accreditation process for Phlebotomist training and address the current skills shortage
  • Structured succession planning: Extending beyond executive levels to ensure leadership continuity and talent development
  • Education opportunities: Acknowledging top performers with study opportunities to enrich skill sets and retention
  • Cross-functional collaboration: Strengthening alignment across divisions to enhance value chain synergy
  • Employee well-being focus: Ongoing support to promote physical, mental, and financial well-being, crucial for sustained performance
  • Capacity building initiatives: Launching graduate and intern programmes builds future workforce capacity
  • Strategic workforce planning: Anticipating skills needs and addressing talent gaps through proactive analysis to support sustained success
  • Middle management succession: Promoting and replacing critical skills for operational continuity

Capitals Impacted

Strategic Priorities

Top Risks

Empowering growth and connection: fostering dialogue, building leaders, nurturing skills, celebrating achievements, and streamlining pathways for future success.

2. Meeting Blood Demand – Blood Products, Group O and Apheresis Platelets

Importance and Risks in Value Creation for SANBS

To fulfil our mission of being ‘Trusted to Save Lives’, SANBS must maintain a safe and adequate blood supply across the provinces we serve. Ensuring a five-day stock level for all blood groups is critical for healthcare delivery, patient care, stakeholder trust, and meeting contractual commitments, while also ensuring financial stability. With less than 1% of South Africans actively donating blood, achieving our daily target of 3,300 units is challenging. Changing donor and patient demographics due to migration exacerbate this issue.

The risk that demand may consistently exceed supply, could be worsened by political and economic instability and disparities between public and private healthcare sectors. Group O and Apheresis platelets face particular pressure due to high emergency demand and donor recruitment challenges. Factors like poverty, unemployment, lifestyle choices, infectious diseases, and iron deficiency further affect donor health and donation rates.

Key risks include blood shortages leading to restricted issues, a shrinking donor base due to safety concerns, shortages of professional nurses impacting blood collection, and challenges in expanding the donor pool due to iron deficiency.

Opportunities and Strategic Response to Create Value

  • Weekend platelet collection strategy: To better meet the demand for platelets, SANBS embarked on a strategy to increase collections over weekends
  • Social media campaign: A targeted campaign featuring the SANBS Wellness Support Programme, leveraging engaging digital content to attract and retain donors, driving traffic to our social media pages and website
  • Patient blood management: A focus on demand management, monitoring wastage, and issuing blood on a returnable basis
  • Donor wellness programmes: These include iron monitoring and replacement, with new and enhanced quality iron replacement tablets procured
  • Customer centricity to underpin SANBS’ strategy:
    • Heightened appreciation of donors, and other stakeholders in the SANBS value chain
    • A strategic shift towards engaging young donors, particularly young Black donors, while also aiming to grow the donor pool across different age groups. This will include considerations for the design of donor centres, retention strategies, loyalty programmes and more

Outlook for the Year Ahead

  • Increase manufacture of pooled platelets : Increase the manufacture of pooled platelets by using all available buffy coat from qualifying donors
  • Motivate plasma donations: Motivate Group A and AB donors to become plasma donors, as whole blood collections from these groups exceed targets
  • Social media campaigns: Implement extensive social media campaigns with high visibility across multiple platforms to raise awareness for the need for blood donation, particularly for Group O and Apheresis platelets
  • Donor communication: Enhance engagement with Group O and Apheresis platelets donors to improve retention and encourage return donations

Capitals Impacted

Strategic Priorities

Top Risks

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