Removing barriers for people with sight loss - Santen UK works with RNIB
Santen UK have been working closely with the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB), a UK charity offering information, support, and advice to almost two million people in the UK with sight loss.
Two key projects align around a shared desire to change our world so there are no barriers to people with sight loss.
The first, the Eye Care Support Pathway, is driven by the RNIB vision to change the way people experience eye care services across the UK, creating change which leads to better outcomes for patients. As a partner to the pathway, Santen attended the launch and is identifying opportunities to support its implementation. The first of these will be the presence of the RNIB at the Santen ONE meeting where the pathway will be launched (in March 2024) and discussed with Optometrists and Ophthalmic nurses - those at the forefront of patient care.
The second, Visibly Better aligned with our goal, to develop ourselves to become a leading employer, demonstrating our understanding, compassion, and inclusivity for eye care patients. We worked with the RNIB to gain their highly regarded Visibly Better certification for employers. Santen UK is now proud to claim we are not just a great place to work, but we are also an employer that meets the highest standards of caring for employees with challenges to their vision. This is strongly linked with our core values as stated by Craig Wallace, General Manager, UK and Ireland:
“I hope we can set a new standard that other companies will in time want to emulate as we work to create happiness for patients with eye diseases across the UK and Ireland."
The over-arching ambition for the Eye Care Support Pathway is that from the moment someone realises that ‘something isn’t quite right’ with their sight, through to diagnosis and being able to live confidently – and independently – with their condition, they have access to the information, and support they need. Patients should be able to actively participate and take control of their eye care journey.
For more information about the eye care support pathway, read the full report here.
Job Code: NP-SANTEN-UK-0116 Date of Preparation: January 2024
From Dry to Thriving: OcuWellness, one year on
A little over one year ago, staring at a blank content plan and a site consisting of only a few presentation slides, I felt a little daunted by the ambitious goal of making OcuWellness the go-to destination for trusted online eye care information. I believed in its potential, but how would we stand out in an internet saturated with healthcare information. Popular sites like WebMD and Healthline had every imaginable ailment already covered and, seemingly, every blogger and business had a must-read roundup on seasonal and trending healthcare topics.
With the rest of the web going big, we were to go small, super small. In fact, we launched OcuWellness in early 2022 with just one eye care focus: Dry eye. We put everything into creating the internet’s most comprehensive and rigorous source of information on the condition, specifically to answer every little niggle and what-if about dry eye that regular people might have. From the obscure ‘can coffee cause dry eye’ (the answer, surprisingly, is it can!), to the routine, we’ve got it covered. Today, I am proud to say that OcuWellness is the top resource for all things dry eye.
So why the laser-like approach? Cast your mind back to 2021 in peak pandemic and it becomes clear: In this world, it was nigh on impossible to get routine appointments for eye care (just see our report on it) with GPs and ophthalmologists, and as a result people like you and me were trying to self-manage using Dr Google as best we could. The trouble with this, as I along with so many others have experienced, is that a casual internet search of pretty much any symptom will leave you convinced you have the big C or that baking soda is the holy grail of natural cures for pretty much whatever (please whatever you do, don’t put it in your eyes).
Sight is precious and people deserved better than what was available. We – as Santen, the world experts in eyecare – could provide far superior information, based on more than 130 years of science and accumulated knowledge.
In an internet playground full of ‘fake news’ and quack science, we created OcuWellness as a place people can trust – every sentence of our site is fact-checked, responsibly referenced, and reviewed by doctors and medical specialists to the highest standard. And, despite the dry eye content, it’s anything but dry. With no-nonsense in clear plain-English, readers can take deep dives into specific topics and learn from our regular blog posts, sharing the latest thinking on eyecare and seasonal topics like itchy eyes and hayfever. It also includes a shop function for our over-the-counter (OTC) treatments so everything is within a few clicks.
Importantly, the site isn’t static, we react to gaps in knowledge when they pop up, according to the trends in keyword searches. So, for example, recently we’ve had younger people visiting OcuWellness to find out about screen-time and dry eye (likely due to the remote working shift) and when pollen peaks, there’s a surge of searches about its connection to symptoms of dry eye. I remember hearing that people were searching if you can sunburn your eyeballs and thinking it was crazy, but it’s something that can happen, and it made for a really interesting blog.
We also created some content on Vernal keratoconjunctivitis (VKC), a rare allergic eye disease. Because it’s not common, there’s not much search volume and so typical sources of online healthcare advice either don’t cover it or provide very little information. We saw that people were looking for more, so we acted. For us, it wasn’t about clicks, it was about what was responsible and meeting that unmet need.
The basics are all covered too; there are OcuWellness blogs on general eye care, such as styes, red and bloodshot eyes, and seasonal information, like how to manage dry eyes in winter. Again, we delve into these with a science-backed but accessible approach.
Now just over a year since launch, OcuWellness is viewed 40,000 times every day. And we're thrilled to hear people living with dry eye and other eye conditions, thanking us for our useful information and tips. Our Key Account Managers report positive feedback from healthcare professionals too.
We’re clearly onto something and I’m excited that this is just the start.
The European version of OcuWellness has launched in Germany, Poland, and France, our social media channels via Instagram and Facebook are rapidly growing, and we have a packed blog schedule. While we launched with a focus on dry eye, we’re now expanding to include other eye conditions such as glaucoma and adding tools to help people better manage dry eye. On the shop-side of the site, we’ve got big plans too with new products in the pipeline.
I feel very proud on behalf of the OcuWellness team when I think about where we’ve come from and where we are now. These days my content plan never ceases to be packed with exciting updates, and the next nine months is no different!
NP-SANTEN-UK-0104 Date of preparation: May 2023
Being Proud: Daring to think differently - ten guiding principles for the care of dry eye disease patients
In the third article in our series – Being Proud: Projects that Make a Difference in Eye Care - Sam Little, Marketing Manager, talks about the launch of a report into the impact of COVID-19 on DED services.
Daring to think differently can be daunting but, as our report DED services in the era of COVID-19 makes clear, it is key to improving the care of dry eye disease.
One of the many legacies of Covid is that it encouraged people to think differently. During the pandemic, when only those with the most serious eye conditions were able to access secondary care, patients with dry eye disease tended to be triaged out of the system.
But dry eye disease can have a huge impact on personal wellbeing and quality of life and, with a large number of these patients struggling, ophthalmology, a service that was stretched anyway, had to come up new ways of providing support, whether that was in hospitals, GPs’ surgeries or high street opticians. And, by daring to think differently, individual centres started to do different things to make things work a bit better.
Here at Santen, we saw what was happening and thought there was an opportunity draw the ideas together and share those that could be carried forward post-pandemic to help streamline services.
We didn’t do this alone. DED services in the era of Covid-19 was developed and driven forward by ten health professionals who are at the heart of ophthalmology services across the UK. These ophthalmic surgeons, ophthalmologists and optometrists have a broad spectrum of experience and are from a broad range of different centres.
They had some really interesting and challenging conversations about what works and what doesn’t work and identified five key areas they felt should be looked at, from the impact of Covid to how education can revolutionise DED care.
There was a genuine desire to explore different ways of managing care and get it down on paper and it was really great to see.
What's particularly nice is that, although there's quite a lot of information in the report, the team have managed to succinctly sum it up in ten guiding principles.
Three, in particular, struck a chord with me.
The first is keeping patients’ needs at the centre of care. This includes finding a balance between making care accessible and supporting patients to manage their own eye care. One way of doing this is through patient-initiated follow-ups – giving certain patients a touch point back into secondary care, rather than automatically booking them in for follow-ups that might not be needed.
Focusing on education, another of the ten recommendations, is also really important. There isn’t a huge amount of information for patients on the internet and different hospitals often have different patient materials. I don’t know what the answer is – perhaps some sort of centralised, credible resource.
But the principle that really resonates with me is one that is highlighted by Bernie Chang, the president of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists, in his foreword – daring to think differently.
Covid made people think differently and challenge the status quo and, as Bernie says, that’s crucial in making change happen.
The report isn’t prescriptive but it does contain really practical guidance as to what works and what doesn’t work in different settings. And that guidance is from people who are doing the job now, who are there doing this work every day and are passionate about helping improve the care of dry eye disease.
Most of all, the report is a repository of great ideas that could make a real difference to ophthalmology services and to the patients they treat.
With thanks to the report’s ten authors: Sai Kolli, Andrena McElvanney, Nicholas Dash, Parwez Hossain, Laura Crawley, Michael O’Gallagher, David Lockington, Zoe Richmond, Sajjad Ahmad and Sophie Harper.
Date of Preparation: April 2023 Job Code: NP-SANTEN-UK-0096
Being Proud: The small steps that could make a profound difference to dry eye disease patients
In the second article in our series - Being Proud: Projects that Make a Difference in Eye Care - Craig Wallace, General Manager of Santen UK, talks about Santen as a Social Innovator.
My dream is for eye care to shift from being a Cinderella disease in the UK to one that is taken seriously - and for Santen to have played a crucial part in that.
Our report on improving dry eye disease care post-Covid is one small, but very important, part of making this a reality.
The report, DED services in the era of COVID-19, is also a fantastic example of living Santen’s relatively new global strategy of being a social innovator in ophthalmology.
Being a social innovator is about doing more than just making good medicines, it’s about bringing different stakeholders, pharmaceutical companies, healthcare professionals, patient organisations, governments etc., together in a holistic way to collaborate to make a difference. And that’s something Santen is committed to doing over the next ten years.
Eye care is one of the biggest things that affects people’s wellbeing. If you ask the general public what they care about in terms of their health, protecting their sight and everything that comes with it – their ability to do their work, see their family and enjoy the world – is one of the most important things to them. Many people will say that it’s actually more important to them than things like cancer, believe it or not, but governments don’t give eye care the priority it deserves.
When we were putting together our report on dry eye disease, we talked to customers and we worked with a group of opinion leaders to try and find answers to difficult questions and come up with recommendations to improve care, so that patients get a better deal in the future. It’s a really good example of walking the walk and actually being a social innovator.
Another example of social innovation is our work with the Industry Vision Group (IVG) to champion the cause for more investment in ophthalmology in the UK.
Almost 1 in 10 hospital outpatient appointments are for eye services but we don’t spend 10% of the NHS budget, in fact it’s nowhere near that (approximately £2.3 billion out of 87.4 billion in 2019) and this shows.1,2,3 Investment is also one of the lowest at just 1.5% of the country’s medical research budget (combining UK Research and Innovation, government, charities and other public bodies).1
The country is facing severe staff shortages: Currently, more than three quarters (77%) of eye units have unfilled consultant posts and two-thirds forced to rely on locum staff.4 With nearly a third of consultants aged 55+ (27%) and many likely looking to retire in the next ten years, this is a problem which is set to get worse.4
Combined with the increase in patient demand – due to an aging populating, rise in diabetes and complex cases – is a worrying cocktail for our ophthalmology services. The significant strain on services has implications for patient care and it’s normally the most vulnerable who suffer. As highlighted in Public Health England’s recent Atlas of variation in risk factors and healthcare for vision in England the “oldest old” are at greatest risk of sight loss.5 More than three-quarters of people living with sight loss are over the age of 64, while one in three aged 85 and over live with sight loss.5,6
We should have more ophthalmologists and a bigger slice of the £160 billion that’s spent on health needs to be channelled towards ophthalmology than is currently the case.7
Of course, social innovation takes a different form in different countries. In the developing world, Santen has announced a 10-year collaboration with the eye care charity Orbis.
https://www.orbis.org/en/news/2020/santen-partnership
This collaboration aims are to ensure that we close the gap on eyecare availability so people in the developing world have just as much access to eyecare as we do here in countries like the UK. This is challenging but there are some very clever actions already happening. For example Orbis’s flying eye hospitals. These planes have been converted to have operating theatres & training facilities inside the plane in place of seats, they fly in, park on a runway and then leading KOLs who have volunteered their time run clinic for patients or training seasons for local doctors.
In the UK, the challenges are different and the solutions are different. I’d like to see eye care to be considered a higher priority here than it is right now.
Most people will go to the dentist once a year-ish and think that’s the right thing to do. But most people will not go and have their eyes checked once a year, despite probably agreeing that their eyes are even more important than their teeth. Regularly going to an optician to have your eyes checked is something everyone should be doing and that’s something I’d like to try to change over the next ten years.
Goals such as persuading everyone to go for an eye test annually or getting a bigger chunk of the £160 billion health budget for ophthalmology will be very hard to actually achieve. But I’m going to keep shouting about them because, hopefully by putting these big things out there, you will get a little bit closer to actually doing them.
The dry eye disease report, in contrast, lays out some very simple, tangible steps that people could take that would make a profound difference to patients.
The steps can be small but, if multiple stakeholders are all making a small step in the right direction, the collective impact could be huge.
References
1. https://www.fightforsight.org.uk/media/3302/time-to-focus-report.pdf (accessed May 2023).
2. https://www.england.nhs.uk/blog/creating-a-community-of-care-on-eye-health/
3. https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/checking-the-nhs-reality-the-true-state-of-the-health-services-finances?gclid=Cj0KCQjwr82iBhCuARIsAO0EAZwaqxz6ECgSnt8FezAF-MlkX2v6BEsUgCgDnG80-7wykswPbtO29r8aAkjAEALw_wcB
4. Response from The Royal College of Ophthalmologists (RCOphth) to the HEE Strategic Framework Call for Evidence, 2021. Available at: https://www.rcophth.ac.uk/news-views/rcophth-calls-for-action-on-workforce-to-reduce-strain/ (accessed March 2023).
5. https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/documents/VisionAtlas_v1.1_20210817.pdf
6. http://wcb-ccd.org.uk/library/rnib_state_of_the_nation_report_2016_pdf.pdf
7. https://www.hfma.org.uk/news/news-list/Article/nhs-3.3bn-increase-explained
NP-SANTEN-UK-0088 Date of preparation: May 2023
Being Proud: Changing for the better through choppy waters
In the first article in our series – Being Proud: Changing for the better through choppy waters - Lisa Spraggs, Human Resources Manager UK & Ireland, discusses how Santen has become an even greater place to work, despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and an ongoing expansion into the over-the-counter (OTC) medicines market.
If the last few years have taught us anything, change comes whether unexpected or planned. It can arrive as a deluge (such as covid) or an initially barely detectable drip drip that, before you’ve even got your wellies on, is now a river sweeping you along. Whichever direction it comes from, it has deep consequences for company culture, its talent pool and, ultimately, its reputation.
Some organisations try to fight it, fruitlessly attempting to stem the flow as with Dyson’s attempts to stop remote working, and some are simply left behind like beached boats when the tide turns like the Blackberrys and Blockbusters of the world. Faced with the aftermath of the pandemic’s tsunami of change and an ongoing expansion into the market of over-the-counter medicines, at Santen UK we knew we wanted to not just weather these potentially choppy waters, but to successfully navigate them to become an even better place to work.
Our approach
Change isn’t easy for companies but especially for the individuals who make up the organisation. Just ask anyone who finds themselves for the umpteenth time speaking on mute during a Teams or Zoom call. If this is you, it may be comforting to know that it’s really biology’s fault and not your memory. You see, habits are so deeply engrained that changing them literally requires breaking old neural pathways and forging new ones. That’s why taking a human-centric approach to organisation change is critical. It’s our job to recognise the individual’s effort and make it easier for them. In my experience, this comes down to five elements:
Listening
This is something we can’t get enough of – it’s built into our working practices, not as an afterthought but as a building block as intrinsic to a project as the budget or timeline. Of course, people only share feedback if they know you’ll listen respectfully and do something about it (see my points below about culture!). For example, following the survey results from our last Great Place to Work assessment, we increased bonuses and made them fairer across the organisation, and increased headcount in departments which reported workload pinch points. We’ve also added to the ways people can share feedback. Responding to remote working which has decreased opportunities for face-to-face and spontaneous conversations, we’ve introduced a dedicated Teams ‘feedback’ channel and an additional performance and development review mid-way through the year. This supports the multiplicity of traditional feedback avenues, from surveys to Town Hall Q&As.
Clear and compassionate communication
Remote working is now a way of life, and we’ve embraced it. That’s not to say it doesn’t have its pitfalls. Staff told us that they missed informal coffee catchups which helped them get to know colleagues as human beings with unique interests and priorities. This is, admittedly, hard to replicate digitally, but we can at least go some way to help. We introduced an open ‘Cultural Significance Calendar’ where anyone can add milestones and photos for dates of personal and cultural significance. I love this and have learned so much about my colleagues and cultural events I wouldn’t have been aware of otherwise, such as Eid, Chanukah and even Siblings Appreciation Day – an event where we exchanged sweets and bracelets to celebrate our brothers and sisters.
We believe that this calendar has led to Santen UK being an even more inclusive and supportive company.
Positive culture
Another common pitfall of remote working is the blurring of work-life boundaries, so we took this opportunity to implement flexible working hours and a compressed work week. Not only as a direct reaction to avoid burnout and end presenteeism, but to futureproof the organisation and better suit every individual at Santen – from school run and carer commitments, to menopause friendly hours, to those simply wanting to fit in a passion such as the morning run. This was possible because of our culture of trust, allowing line managers and employees to organise themselves according to their own needs, and a culture which celebrates our people for the unique and brilliant beings that they are. This has been one of my favourite policies to work on because it takes so many forms and it’s exciting to embrace a forward-thinking work style.
We’ve also updated performance reviews to be structured around company values. This ensures that how we achieve our goals is as important as what we achieve. Within the process, teams set their own group success goals, encouraging collaboration, and breaking down any silos – something that’s increasingly important as we expand.
Strong leadership
Our human-centric approach is a priority for our leadership team. Indeed, our leadership recognise that achieving our 2021/22 Great Place to Work accolade is not enough in itself. We aren’t complacent. The award’s stringent review process helps us take stock of where we need to improve.
Already, we know sustainability will be a focus for us this year. While we’ve come so far, installing electric chargers, converting office supplies to recyclable ones, and introducing electric hybrid cars, we can and must go further. This is, of course, about operating ethically but also something that’s important to our employees - and so twice as important to us. Personally, this makes me very excited: working on this has opened my eyes to a whole new area of exciting possibilities for the UK and the company as a whole and shows Santen’s long-term commitment to its people.
Investing resource
Successful change requires sustained investment of resource to embed in new working practices. That means time, budget and people. A great example of this is our wellbeing days. These are fun workshops like cooking, yoga, Pilates, coaching and listening to interesting guest speakers, that help us connect and relax. Importantly, we hold these during working hours to make them accessible, showing that we value our people’s personal time and are prepared to invest in them. Similarly, we also give all employees ‘Find Your Flow’ time which is four hours a week at the same time for everyone to focus on development, to spend however they like. And, during our EMEA staff conference, we carved out a time in the normally packed agenda purely for fun which, again, shows that we really appreciate our staff time and wellbeing.
By putting our people first, we’ve been able to not just maintain our working culture through the trials of the pandemic and our recent OTC expansion, but positively change for the better. That saw us become a Great Place to Work in 2021/22 and Best Place to Work in April 2022/23, and since then we’ve become an even greater place to work, increasing our overall performance from 80% to 88%.1,2 I’m particularly proud that we consistently score over 90% for advocacy and pride because, at Santen, we find meaning and purpose in our work together, helping improve people’s lives through eyecare.2
1. Great Place to Work assessment, 2021/22
2. Great Place to Work assessment, 2022/23
Date of preparation: May 2023 Job Code: NP-SANTEN-UK-0102
Santen is named one of the best places to work in UK
Santen UK has been recognised as one of the UK’s Best Workplaces™ today by Great Place to Work®, the global authority on workplace culture.
The accolade, the second in recent months, is awarded to organisations with exceptional workplace cultures characterised by high levels of trust, respect and fairness.
To determine the 290 best places to work in the UK in 2022, Great Place to Work® surveyed employees anonymously and carried out audits of company culture. The results were then comprehensively evaluated and the businesses with the highest scores awarded the prestigious Best Workplaces™ status.
Santen UK is also delighted to be recognised as one of the UK's Best Workplaces™ for Wellbeing. This list celebrates companies who prioritise the wellbeing of their staff by supporting work-life balance, sense of fulfilment, job satisfaction, psychological wellbeing and financial security.
Commenting on the results, Lisa Spraggs, HR Manager said: “We are so proud to have been recognised as not only one of the UK’s Best Workplaces™ but also one of the Best Workplaces™ for Wellbeing. These awards are all the more important because they are based on our team members’ experiences of working for Santen UK. The past few years have been challenging, but these awards are a testament to our flexible approach to working, exciting career paths and workplace trust.
“We are looking forward to celebrating these achievements during our UK Conference. Equipped with these results we will strive to make Santen an even better place to work in the future.”
Santen has more than 4,000 employees globally, including 65 employees across its St Albans and field based teams in the UK. To find out more about careers at Santen, visit santen.uk/careers.
For more information about the UK’s Best Workplace™ and UK’s Best Workplaces for Wellbeing™ certifications, visit: www.greatplacetowork.co.uk.
Job Code: NP-Santen-UK-0066
Date of Preparation: April 2022
Santen sponsors RNIB See Differently Awards 2022
Santen is delighted to announce that it will be sponsoring the ‘Community Contributor of the Year’ category at The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) See Differently Awards, 2022, a ceremony that recognises and celebrates those who are dedicated to improving the lives of blind and partially sighted people.
Shortlisted nominees, put forward by the public, will attend a special event on 29 March where the winners will be announced. Santen is sponsoring the Community Contributor of the Year category, awarded to an individual who consistently dedicates themselves to improving the lives of people with sight loss and who has achieved incredible results. This includes those who strive to raise awareness of issues around sight loss, break down barriers people face or goes above and beyond to empower and support people living with sight loss.
Commenting on the decision to sponsor the ‘Community Contributor of the Year’ category at the awards, Craig Wallace, General Manager of Santen UK and Ireland, and EMEA Head Commercial Operations, said: “Our mission is to help people live happier lives by having the best vision experience. While part of that is achieved through medical innovation, it’s far wider than that. For example, there is still much to do to improve inclusion and equality for those living with sight loss and improve overall eyecare quality and access. That’s why we collaborate with partners like the RNIB on activities such as this. These awards play an important role in improving eye care by celebrating and drawing attention to the brilliant work that individuals and organisations are doing to improve the lives of people living with sight loss. We’re proud to be a sponsor.”
Other categories in the awards include Campaigner of the Year, Best Social Media Impact of the Year, Team of the Year, Employer of the Year, Volunteer of the Year and the Design for Everyone Award.
Everyday 250 people begin to lose their sight1. RNIB is the UK’s leading sight loss charity and the largest community of blind and partially sighted people. To find out more about the awards or the RNIB, visit: www.rnib.org.uk.
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Clinicians collaborate to tackle the future of glaucoma care at this year’s GlaucomaFest
Today sees the launch of the GlaucomaFest report, a summary of crowdsourced solutions to some of the most pressing challenges facing glaucoma services in the UK.
The report was developed following the second annual GlaucomaFest, an international virtual conference followed by a series of four face-to-face creative workshops across the UK hosted by Santen.
Glaucoma specialist and general ophthalmologists from across the globe attended the conference via custom remote platform, chaired by Professor Miriam Kolko (Clinical Associate Professor of Translational Pharmacology at the Department of Clinical Medicine at the University of Copenhagen and chief assistant at the Copenhagen University Hospital) and Mr Karl Mercieca (Consultant Ophthalmologist and glaucoma lead at the University of Bonn Eye Clinic in Bonn, Germany). Over the day, nine world-leading experts presented on the latest in glaucoma care, ranging from congenital glaucoma to glaucoma in pregnancy.
UK clinicians were then invited to workshops in London, Newcastle, Liverpool and York, tasked with devising solutions to some of the most pressing challenges facing the nation’s glaucoma services. Using techniques from the creative industry, participants developed ideas ranging from photobooth-style testing facilities, to linking glaucoma centres in the UK together through a national database.
Paul Campbell, Marketing Manager at Santen, said: “Like much of the health service, glaucoma care has had to rapidly adapt to the challenges of the pandemic, such as patient backlogs, virtual check-ups and new safety measures. GlaucomaFest not only shared the latest thinking in care, but also allowed clinicians to collaborate on potential solutions whether though new ideas, fresh insights or simply by connecting with a colleague. Our in-person workshops, which were possible at the time and observed strict COVID-19 safety precautions, provided a valuable window for peer-to-peer connection – something that has been greatly missed during the past two years.’’
To read a summary of the workshop and crowdsourced solutions, clinicians are able to download the GlaucomaFest report and watch GlaucomaFest on demand on the SEE platform.
SEE (Santen educational events) is an online platform for the ophthalmology community in the UK and Ireland. To access SEE, please register here.
Find out more about GlaucomaFest and other events hosted by Santen, visit https://seesanten.com.
Santen UK certified as Great Place to Work
Santen UK is delighted to announce that it is officially certified as a great place to work by the independent global authority on workplace culture, Great Place to Work®.
The certification recognises high performing workplaces where employees feel trusted and valued, and where they are encouraged to develop personally and professionally.
To secure the accolade, Santen UK underwent a comprehensive assessment, including an anonymous employee survey measuring credibility, respect, fairness, pride and camaraderie and an audit of company culture. The scores were then benchmarked against more than 10,000 organisations across the world.
Great Place to Work is an international research and consulting institute that assesses workplace culture in 60 different countries around the world. Since 1992, they have surveyed more than 100 million employees globally, using those insights to define what makes a great workplace.
Commenting on the results, Craig Wallace, General Manager of UK and Ireland, and EMEA Head Commercial Operations, said: “We’re immensely proud of this achievement and the high scores we achieved during the audit, especially since Santen UK is a relatively new organisation and this is the first time we’ve applied for the certification. It’s a testament to our genuinely collaborative culture, rewarding career paths and workplace trust. From day one, our team have been dedicated to creating this positive environment and, armed with these results, will be working with the consultants at Great Place to Work to make it even better.”
Santen has more than 4,000 employees globally, including 65 employees across its St Albans and field based teams in the UK. To find out more about careers at Santen, visit santen.uk/careers.
For more information about Great Place to Work or UK’s Great Workplaces certification, visit: www.greatplacetowork.co.uk.
Santen takes home two awards at the 2021 PM Society Digital Awards
September 2021 – Santen, a global company specialising in ophthalmology, received two prestigious accolades at the PM Society Digital Awards 2021. Two campaigns were recognised as outstanding, resulting in a Silver Award in the Brand Promotion category, and a Gold Award in Meetings & Events.
The PM Society Digital Awards are designed to recognise digital creativity, innovation and effectiveness across the healthcare sector.
Santen UK achieved silver in the Brand Promotion category for their Ophthalmology Resource Centre – which has been accessed by more than 759 unique visitors since it launched in September 2019.
The online centre featured a variety of engaging content, such as interactive case studies that doctors could use to check and test knowledge.
GlaucomaFest 2020 – a unique, immersive education experience from Santen EMEA – was also awarded Gold in the Meeting & Events category. The event was designed to support EMEA ophthalmologists seeking continuing medical education through COVID-19 and beyond.
Constructed around an exciting festival theme, the event featured multiple ‘tents’ with different click points, and a ‘main stage’ for the keynote speakers.
The education reinforced key messages about best practices in glaucoma care management, but presented them in an interactive format. The campaign was well received by the ophthalmology community, receiving more than 245k impressions and 2156 registrations, greatly exceeding the original target of 500.
“There were so many webinars that popped up during the pandemic, we knew we needed something different, something exciting, to keep healthcare professionals engaged,” commented Rafael Fischer, Director, Marketing, Glaucoma (EMEA). “Attendees felt really engaged with the innovative format, highlighting that the learning experience was very different than a standard webinar. We’re thrilled that it’s been recognised by the PM Society.”
For more information on Santen’s medical education offerings, please visit the Santen Eyecare Education website – an interactive learning hub for healthcare professionals in ophthalmology.
