About Us

Who we are

Anglian Community Enterprise (ACE) Community Interest Company provides a range of community health and well-being services to the population of North East Essex, with some services also in Suffolk.

We are an employee-owned community interest company, with more than 900 staff. This means our staff own the organisation and although they do not receive any financial dividends, they are able to influence the decision-making of the organisation.

As a community interest company, we can reinvest any profits back into developing our local services for service users and supporting the local community.

Our aim is to maintain and improve the health and well-being of the communities we serve by providing safe, accessible and high quality care.

We work collaboratively with partners across the health and care system, including social care, mental health, hospitals, hospices, GPs, service users, community and voluntary organisations, which supports the ambition of the NHS Long Term Plan for England (2019).

We remain accountable to patients who increasingly tell us they want to receive high quality, joined-up services from people who really understand them and their communities. Listening to views, opinions and expertise of patients, service users and families/carers is an essential part of shaping the design and continuous improvement of ACE's services.

Our Vision and Values

Vision

Our vision is to be the leader in the communities we serve, providing innovation, quality, and value for money as we deliver healthcare services accessible to all.

Values

We are extremely proud of what we do, and all of our achievements reflect the passion, dedication and commitment demonstrated by our hardworking staff. These qualities are supported by our values of:

Social Mission

Our guiding principle is our Social Mission, which ensures we use every element of what we do – be it service provision, employment, purchasing or investing - to improve the health and well-being of the local communities in which we work.

We invest 100% of the profits from our day-to-day operations into our services and programmes that support the wider well-being of the communities we serve, many of which are operated by our local voluntary sector partners.

As a community interest company, our culture, organisational structure, services and commercial models are designed to maximise the social value we create for the communities we serve and contribute to these communities economically, socially and environmentally. We have in place a range of measures to support this:

Our procurement policies are designed to create social value, including sourcing goods and services locally. 25% of our ‘influenceable’ spend is directed to local businesses
As a Social Enterprise, 100% of our surplus is reinvested in services and through social investment in organisations or groups which promote and protect the social, mental and physical health or well-being of communities in and around the area we serve
Since 2014 we have awarded £353,000 to 59 local community projects and groups through Anglian Community Trust (ACT)
Engagement with one of our local community voluntary organisations, has increased volunteering into ACE by 150%. These Health Partners (volunteers) are embedded in our community services, offering practical advice and support to help patients regain confidence and independence following an accident or period of ill health.

ACE's social mission is also embedded in our Business Development Strategy and, as a result, consideration is given to maintaining services that may fail to make a financial contribution or are peripheral to ACE’s core services, but which nonetheless make a positive contribution to the community.

Anglian Community Trust (ACT) is a registered charity set up by ACE for the benefit of the community of North East Essex and surrounding areas.

To find out more about Anglian Community Trust, click the ACT logo below which will take you to the ACT website.

Our Care Quality Commission (CQC) Registration

The role of the Care Quality Commission (CQC) is to monitor whether our services are providing care that is legally compliant with the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and its subsequent regulations by meeting the CQC's published quality and safety standards.

ACE is required to register with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and its current registration status is without conditions to provide personal care, nursing care, treatment of disease, disorder or injury and diagnostic and screening procedures. The CQC monitors our performance all the time and at a minimum of every five years it will visit our service locations unannounced to observe the service being delivered and to talk to patients, users, carers, families and staff. CQC can also contact or visit us at any time if it wishes to investigate a concern it has about a particular service.

Clicking on this link will take you to the CQC Statement of Purpose document.