Who are we?
Avoca was founded in 1995 by our Managing Director, Callum Kennedy. After several years of winning and delivering analysis and reporting projects at a local Trust and Health Authority level, Avoca were commissioned by the Department of Health to provide a national online analysis service to the entire NHS called the Online System for Comparative Analysis and Reporting (OSCAR). This service, the largest ever, was managed entirely by Avoca as a sub-contractor to McKesson. Running successfully for two years up to the start of NPfIT, it had over 2000 users from Acute Trusts, Primary Care Trusts and Health Authorities delivering a range of web based reports on commissioning and performance analysis. For this ground breaking project, Avoca handled 86 million inpatient, day case and outpatient records received from every hospital trust in England and provided a range of standardization, cleansing and derivation routines to make approximately 128 million corrections / amendments to the data each quarter.

In 2000 Avoca relocated to Chesterfield which was chosen for its central location and excellent transport links along with a great selection pool of talented people. In October 2004, Avoca specialised as a service orientated company, providing data migration services and health informatics solutions as part of the National Programme for IT (NPfIT). Avoca have been providing a range of data management solutions to the NHS for over 10 years. The combined expertise and experience of the Avoca team has led the company to achieving recognition as the market leaders in NHS data migration and data management.

Training & Development
The unique strength of our training lies in its contextualisation into our everyday work and industry sector, delivering immediate benefits and underpinning our emphasis on quality, linking organisation culture to our training style and service delivery.

As our business is built on a reputation for quality and knowledge expertise, people truly are our greatest and most valuable asset. Recognising this, we have made considerable investment in staff development. This can be measured in direct financial terms and also indirectly from the investment of time, effort and passion from the Avoca management team. The pinnacle of this investment has been our Health Informatics Training Academy. In 2009, Avoca won the Business Skills & Staff Development Award in the Derbyshire Business Awards and a regional award at the National Training Awards in recognition of the Training Academy as an exemplary training programme and as a business model.

Personal development is not just a nicety at Avoca, it is a way of life and we embrace the concept of working with individuals to achieve shared goals. Shared goals of our team include the desire to really make a difference. Our work directly impacts the lives of people within our community. Taking our reputation for quality extremely seriously, we fully appreciate the effect our attention to detail can have on the lives of patients whose data we take care of. This belief is at the very heart of our training and staff development practices.

Reward
Avoca are an inclusive and supportive employer who cares about the skills, health & happiness of our people.

We’ve assembled a range of benefits and rewards to reflect our employee demographic profile and incentivise our talented team. Included in this unique package of benefits are discretionary performance awards, health care benefit (including critical illness cover), free car parking, refreshments and kitchen facilities in our Chesterfield office, a stakeholder pension scheme, registration to the UK Council for Health Informatics Professionals (UKCHIP), long service awards, a dedicated training fund and access to our award winning Training Academy.

All work and no play is no good for anybody so we also offer 25 days holiday plus bank / public holidays, a career break scheme, dress-down Fridays and a dedicated sports & social fund which is very well utilised!

Equal Opportunities
We are committed to eliminating discrimination and encouraging diversity amongst our workforce. Our aim is that our workforce will be truly representative of all sections of society and each employee feels respected and able to give of their best.

Our vision & values
Avoca has a clearly defined set of values and beliefs, which sum up our raison d’être and underpin all our activities. We are proud of our company values and are committed to delivering them consistently.

Our Values

Client focused - We are committed to understanding the changing needs of our clients and our business will evolve in accordance with their requirements.
People business - Our staff are our most valuable asset and we give full priority to their personal development, welfare, health and safety.
Pride - We are proud of the company we work for and take great pride in a job well done.
Dependability - Our clients can depend on us to deliver our promise, every time.
Delivering value for money - We understand what constitutes true value for money for our clients and ensure they always receive it from Avoca.

Our Belief
It is our belief that our clients will experience an increasing need for our expert solutions and support.

Our Vision
Quite simply, we want to help our clients prosper and achieve their aims through the provision of robust, informed, solutions and support services.

 
Our Mission
By applying our unique combination of expertise and practical experience, we aim to formulate solutions that are mutually beneficial to us and our clients.

Employee Newsletter
Our biannual Newsletter is a celebration of our team achievements in our professional and social lives. News articles are written by staff members for staff members and can range from reporting exciting new developments in our customer’s projects through to our latest team sporting or social events and even the latest news on our fundraising efforts for charity.
Click here to see an extract from our latest Employee Newsletter.