The Board has put in place to ensure that the Company operates in a safe, ethical and responsible manner and in a way that helps protect the environment and safeguards the health and safety of its employees, customers, suppliers and the communities in which it operates.
The Company operates in a number of different countries. Our proprietary retinal imaging medical technology provides optometrists and ophthalmologists with enhanced clinical information and documentation that facilitates the early detection, diagnosis and treatment of disorders and diseases that exhibit in the retina. This can result in more targeted treatment regimes and improved patient outcomes.
Equal opportunities
Optos plc is an equal opportunities employer. This means that it is Company policy that no individual or group of individuals experiences discrimination, harassment or victimization on any grounds.
The Company upholds a policy of providing equal opportunities to all persons. This underpins and guides all aspects of employment, including recruitment and promotion, and provides encouragement to employees at all levels to act fairly and to prevent discrimination on any ground, including but not limited to age, sex, race, marital status, sexual orientation, religion or disability. Company policies for recruitment, training, career development and promotion of employees are open, fair and inclusive in their approach. The Company received a Business Diversity Award in Scotland for its recruitment processes.
We recognize the need to develop and regularly review employment policies and procedures to ensure that recruitment, training and development, promotion and compensation decisions are made on the basis of competency, performance, ability and potential. The Company seeks to facilitate a culture that enables employees to successfully balance professional and personal requirements and commitments. We believe that this helps recruit and retain skilled and motivated employees.
Breaches of the Company's equal opportunities policy and procedures and any unfair or unlawful discrimination will not be tolerated and will be dealt with under the Company’s disciplinary procedures. In serious cases, this could lead to dismissal of the relevant individual. The policy shall also apply to contractors working at the Company's premises.
Health & safety
The Company’s policy regards the health, safety and welfare of all employees as a matter of prime importance and serves as the basis for the Company owing a duty of care under law and as a matter of best practice to protect its employees and others from harm arising from work activities.
Among the central elements to health and safety are: ensuring that health and safety is at the forefront of considerations when we design our devices; ensuring that our devices are manufactured and maintained to the highest standards; training and educating our staff worldwide in the safe operation of our devices; and, ensuring that health and safety issues has the appropriate level of focus throughout the management chain.
The Company has a written policy on Health and Safety which is comprised of the following elements: statement of the Company’s commitment to health and safety and detailing how safety will be managed; details of where responsibilities are allocated and how employees fit into the overall safety management system; and, details of how specific activities and functions are managed. The last element includes risk assessments, fire safety, first aid, incident and accident reporting, electrical safety, work equipment, hazardous substances and manual handling. Information, instruction and training on health and safety are provided across the Company.
The Board of Directors has acknowledged and accepted its responsibility for health and safety across the Company. The Chief Executive Officer has overall responsibility for ensuring that line management is responsible for the day to day management of health and safety. The Board receives monthly updates and on a quarterly basis a detailed report on health and safety, which enables the directors to closely assess and review the effectiveness of the policy throughout the financial year.
Environment
The Company makes available to its customers medical retinal imaging devices that are designed to ensure at a very minimum that they comply with applicable laws, regulations and industry standards in each of the country markets in which we operate.
These devices by design have a minimal impact on the environment. Nevertheless the Company is committed to sound environmental practices and is currently developing a more robust environmental management system that will seek to: establish and maintain details of the organization’s environmental, legal and stakeholder requirements; identify and evaluate areas where the business has potential to impact the environment; formulate environmental objectives and targets for the business, based on the environmental policy and legal requirements and on the identified targets; and, develop a plan that outlines how the business proposes to achieve the objectives and targets.
The Company undertakes to recycle its paper, plastics, metal and personal computers and mobile telephones. Re-usable containers are used to ship the Company’s medical devices. Efforts to achieve ISO14001 accreditation for an environmental management system are underway.
Social responsibility
Making a difference together reflects the spirit of our community involvement as well as our efforts to be a responsible corporate citizen. Building and maintaining vibrant, healthy communities is a shared responsibility in which we all have a stake. We believe that everyone has a role to play in building a healthy and prosperous society and the Company is committed to doing its part. Employees are encouraged to engage with and make a difference in the communities where we live and work and during the year the Company supported employees and partnered with customers and organizations in a number of worthy causes and initiatives to give back and make that important difference. Many of our employees contributed independently of the Company to support their colleagues in their charitable endeavors during the year.
The Company continues to maintain an informal giving program that provides modest financial support to encourage the community spirit of our employees. It is about looking for opportunities to empower and collaborate with employees and the community through charitable work, not-for-profits, professional organizations, schools and others. It is also about being proactive to promote and address issues that matter to our stakeholders.
During the last financial year the Company and its employees helped make a difference by supporting a number of very worthwhile initiatives, which included:
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sightsavers INTERNATIONAL, which works to combat blindness in developing countries, restoring sight through specialist treatment and eye care, supporting people who are irreversibly blind by providing education, counseling and training, and helping people who need it most – those living in poverty in some of the world's poorest countries.
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LEPRA Society, which is a health and development organization working to restore health, hope and dignity to people affected by leprosy, tuberculosis, malaria, HIV/AIDS, blindness and other health conditions exacerbated by stigma and social discrimination.
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Sense Scotland, which works with children and adults who have communication support needs because of deaf blindness, sensory impairment, learning and physical disabilities.
We also participated in a blood donor program and supported cancer research initiatives; we worked with the American Optometric Association on its national campaign to raise awareness of the importance of annual eye examinations, including amongst the senior population in a “Eyes on You” public awareness campaign across the USA; sponsored a Back to School effort where together with our customers we helped educate parents about the having their children examined regularly; and, screened Special Olympic athletes.
Our devices continue to support clinical trials around the world, including research into diabetes and age-related macular degeneration, and during the year supported a team of scientists led by The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in a clinical trial where gene therapy has been used to safely restore vision in three young adults with a rare form of congenital blindness.
We believe that our combined efforts make a difference.
Business ethics
Our technology has a growing reputation for helping medical professionals in their efforts to deliver a higher standard of clinical care to their patients through the earlier detection and treatment of disease that first exhibits in the periphery of the retina.
But, at the heart of this success is something that is less tangible and cannot be illustrated by key performance indicators. This is about values and how we conduct our business. We aim to do this with integrity and honesty at all times, and with all stakeholders. Our employees, as well as the consultants and contractors who we work with, are expected to act in an ethical manner at all times.
A Company-wide Ethics Policy is under development and expected to be introduced across the Company in the 2009 financial year. The objective of the Policy will be to ensure that Optos continues to be a good place to work, to maintain our reputation for customer service, affirm our commitment to ethical business dealings and to ensure that the business is managed to a consistently high and accountable standard.