Medirest – Compass Group

Medirest is the UK’s leading provider of food, hospitality and support services in acute NHS hospitals, Private Healthcare and Senior Care markets. We partner with over 20 NHS Trusts in the UK, employing 10,000 dedicated Soft FM professionals – cleaning over 1.5million metres of hospital space each day.

Your Company’s Approach to Healthcare:

Medirest support services create positive environments to aid recovery and support the wellbeing of all who pass through the hospital doors. We operate reliable and consistent support services including hospital cleaning, security and logistics services, patient catering, and fuelling workforces through our retail provisions so they remain healthy and productive. When spending time in a healthcare setting there are many factors that can impact on the quality of your experience, the cleanliness of the facility, friendliness of the staff, the efficiency of services and one of the most important factors other than clinical procedures – the food. That’s why, we have made it our mission to understand what is important to the staff, patients and visitors to ensure that we make every experience the best it can be.

Impact of Your Products/​Services on Healthcare:

We draw upon the best expertise, innovations and practices across our business, ensuring we are at the cutting edge of developments in non-clinical support services, as well as delivering tailored solutions that meet the needs of each client.

Innovation in Your Business:

Innovation is at the forefront of all our services, we are always seeking new and innovative solutions that can increase productivity, quality, enhanced patient experience, sustainability, and are most importantly backed by science and data.

More recently we have implemented a UVC tower system to our cleaning toolkit after undertaking ground-breaking research to establish the most effective way to use UVC in a hospital environment. This new UVC tower system has decreased the time it takes to thoroughly apply to all surfaces in a room, as well as being able to guarantee that a ‘full’ decontamination has reached every possible area.

Medirest have also implemented robotic cleaning technology into the hospital environment. We originally partnered with specialist, Killis, to trial a market-leading robotic scrubber-drier system that typically uses 70% less water and fewer chemicals than traditional cleaning methods, perfect to help Trusts to operate more sustainably, as well as contribute towards net zero targets. The robot technology has delivered improved productivity, quality, consistency of cleaning and fantastic perception from staff and visitors to the hospitals.

24/7 foodservice for NHS staff, visitors and patients is now an essential requirement for all NHS acute hospitals – but how Trusts deliver this is open to interpretation, and offers huge scope for innovative thinking. This year our retail team opened the first frictionless retail store in a UK healthcare setting to offer round the clock access to a variety of food and drink provisions. In this frictionless store that incorporates Amazon’s ‘Just Walk Out’ technology, shoppers swipe their credit or debit card, or mobile wallet as they go in. The technology embedded in the store registers what they choose, and then their accounts are charged automatically as they leave.

Future Direction:

Medirest have recently announced a significant investment in its data analytics capability, through the expansion of its E15 data intelligence team and E15 data platforms. This will benefit the operational team, clients and customers by enabling further focus on a data-led strategy and innovation.