Medical records: Fit for a global impact

TPP is providing cutting-edge healthcare-related software all over the world and embarking on a massive recruitment programme to take the firm to the next level. Mark Casci reports.
Frank Hester.Frank Hester.
Frank Hester.

According to the Northern Powerhouse Partnership there are four areas in which our region can be genuinely world-leading, namely energy, advanced manufacturing, healthcare and digital.

Based in the Leeds suburb of Horsforth, TPP specialises in the latter two of these areas, and is desperate to recruit staff in order to facilitate its plans for future growth.

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In a nutshell, TPP produces software for the healthcare industry. Its business model is based on a shared electronic medical record and improving access to clinical data.

The business was initially a concept to join up community healthcare data and the GP practice. It was commissioned by a service in Bradford to join up a diabetes service so that the same records could be accessed in different places.

Years of organic growth followed, with progress having sped up significantly in the past decade. TPP’s systems are now used by approximately 6,500 NHS organisations, from GP practices and hospitals to prison healthcare.

Its current large international presence in the Middle East and China is increasing at a rate of knots and the firm is preparing to start work in India.

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“The concept is still the same as it was 20 years ago,” says chief executive Frank Hester, who was inspired to found TPP by his wife’s work as a GP.

“It is about having one record for all of your health needs, encompassing social care as well.

“The idea is that your record is accessible wherever you go and you receive care as long as you are using our system or one that partners it.”

In recent years the firm has begun to establish a strong international presence, with operations in the Middle East and China, and plans to expand into India are well advanced.

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However, when it comes to expansion the business desperately needs more people to facilitate it, leading to the massive recruitment programme it is currently engaged in.

“We are constrained by what we can do internationally and in the UK by resource,” says Mr Hester. “We have remained fairly static for the last four years or so and have around 211 on our payroll.

“Last year, we moved into this great big building and a few months ago we decided that 2017 had to be the year when we put all of our efforts into recruitment.”

Earlier this year, the firm launched the TPP Top 50 campaign to find the 50 brightest graduates, offering £100 to come for an interview, as well as expenses, such is the competitiveness of the marketplace.

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“We are in the really lucky position that we have got more work than we can cope with,” says Mr Hester.

“It is really frustrating. Overseas we are not doing any marketing – it is all just word of mouth.

“We would like to get to South Korea, we have a great opportunity in India. But we have had to push it back until Christmas.”

The layman might assume that TPP is targeting graduates in fields such as IT and engineering, but this is not so. It has recently employed people specialising in creative writing and music, with much of the technological knowledge-base delivered via on-the-job training.

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“We are looking for very high-end graduates,” says Mr Hester. “Ninety per cent have probably got a job by the end of the first term of their final year. You are really fighting hard at this time of year. We are doing a university-wide campaign

“You don’t need to necessarily be tech-savvy – we will teach you everything you need to know. A lot of our programmers have done history, politics, English, etc.

“Twenty-eight per cent of our graduates are Oxbridge graduates and the next 30 per cent are from the top 20 universities.

“For our developers, we ask that you did A level maths. Elsewhere, we ask for a 2:1 level of degree and above, and a passion for learning.”

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The benefits are good. Not only do salaries start at a very decent £36,000 a year, but within four or five years this usually rises to between £55,000 and £60,000 a year.

Other perks include regular trips abroad, including to Croatia, and each employee receives £200 on their birthday to be spent on a meal out with friends and family. It also has a unique policy that people must live within a certain radius of the office. Owing to contracts with A&E departments, any problems that might develop need to be resolved very quickly.

The business is aiming to hire 50 people in 2017 for analyst and developer roles and a further 30 across the other teams.

“We tend to hire people who have a great passion for working hard and wanting to learn new things,” says Mr Hester. “Being 23-24 and on a trade mission with someone prominent who you normally would only see on the television is unique.

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“Plus, the idea of doing something good in the world; I know that sounds cheesy but we do find that people feel good about what we are doing to help people’s health.”

Mr Hester feels that his business is fairly future-proof in that it deals in both technology and healthcare.

“Everybody is always going to need healthcare. We have no hierarchy here. No real official seniority in job titles. People know they are not starting at the bottom of the pile and will have responsibility straight away.”