A seasoned professional, Jolene most recently served as chief operations officer within the company having joined Genmed in 2013 as an area manager focused on pathology-related business. Here she quickly made her mark and was quickly promoted to various other senior roles.
Working in close partnership with NHS Trusts, Jolene has been instrumental in bringing to market new managed services involving clinical disciplines such as pathology, renal, surgery and endoscopy. This has seen Genmed’s revenues increase from just over £5 million a decade ago when she joined to over £100 million today.
Genmed supports Trusts throughout the whole procurement cycle. It provides financing, run bids, selects suppliers, works to rationalise and reduce the pricing of products, manages inventory and removes the administrative overhead of invoice processing. Ultimately Genmed speeds up the purchasing process and takes on non-clinical work to enhance clinical productivity.
The benefits of its model are substantial at a time of major cost pressures in the health service. Genmed saved the NHS around £20 million last year through CIP (Cost Improvement Programmes) benefits, efficiency gains and VAT recovery. Its managed services are HMRC compliant meaning that Trusts can reclaim the 2o% VAT back to reinvest in front line services and the treatment of patients.
Today, Genmed supports over 40 NHS Trusts and Health Boards throughout the UK managing hundreds of contracts.
In 2022, Genmed won the HSJ Best Acute Sector Partnership award for a project to fund, procure and manage the building of an additional operating theatre, pre-theatre ward and clinical consulting room at South West London Elective Orthopaedic Centre (SWLEOC). Since it opened in July 2021, an additional 1,300+ patients have been treated for orthopaedic procedures which is helping reduce NHS waiting list numbers. It was Jolene in 2016 who played a pivotal role in winning this contract which has involved procuring all the equipment to run this specialist hospital.
Commenting on her appointment, Jolene says, “As CEO, I’ll be working to grow our business and make Genmed a great place to work, however, the NHS and patients are at the very heart of everything we do. A key focus will be continuing to innovate and expand the range of services offered to align and further support our health system so it’s an exciting time for me to be taking on this role.”
Robin Modak, Genmed’s founder and chairman, says, “Jolene has tremendous vision, is a great communicator and understands the company and our services inside and out having worked at all levels and areas in the business. She’s a true leader and exactly the right person to lead the company to its next stage of development.”