An interview with the head of Wylie & Bisset's healthcare team

Radar Healthcare recently announced our strategic partnership with chartered accountants Wylie & Bisset.

Radar Healthcare CEO Paul Johnson said:

“We built Radar Healthcare to support organisations, both by providing the means to support the efficient management of the day-to-day, and in offering the innovation needed to build outstanding services and gain the best regulatory ratings. We’re proud that our state-of-the-art technology is already supporting many to do just that, and delighted that our partnership with Wylie & Bisset will help even more.”  

We spoke to Laura Smith, Head of Wylie & Bisset’s healthcare team, about the challenges the healthcare sector has faced over the past year, what the future might look like and the exciting partnership between Radar Healthcare and Wylie & Bisset.   

Tell us a bit about yourself and Wylie & Bisset..   

I was approached by Wylie Bisset to join the team 5 years ago as a manager to grow the healthcare division and support GP practices, pharmacies and care homes in particular, and I’ve recently been promoted to Partner. Wylie & Bisset is one of the largest independent accountancy firms in Scotland and are also one of the most trusted, because of our long-standing client relationships. We are sector specialists within healthcare, we’re really growing as a business.  

What types of organisations do you work with?   

All types. Typically, GPs will be sole practitioners or partnerships (varying in size from 2 to 10).  On the care home and pharmacy side we work with independents, director shareholders and groups of companies. The different entity types have different needs as to do the different areas of the sector. Some clients are compliance focused, others are more corporate focused and they all need our support in different ways.   

It’s been a particularly challenging year for healthcare, what are the main issues your clients are facing?  

I think across the sector the different types of organisations have seen different challenges. We need to sit by our clients’ side, supporting them with their current finance and compliance requirements, but also reviewing the future position of the business to highlight what they need to be thinking about. For me, this all comes back to building a strong relationship with our clients. If they just see us as their accountants who tick the compliance requirements then you will never really get under the surface, but once you do, that’s when you see what they really need.   

What do you see as being the priorities for healthcare teams for the next 6 months?   

There’s definitely challenges ahead and the pandemic certainly isn’t over yet, I know of some care groups that have entered administration. I think a lot of it will be steadying the ship, if I had a crystal ball to see the next 12 months it would be great! Unfortunately, we can’t plan for every eventuality, for me it is about understanding the needs and wants of each business, whether that’s a pharmacy, GP practice, care group or anything else. I like to sit down with the client and discuss 12 month, 2 year and 5 year plans as having conversations like that provides us with visibility we need to be proactive, supportive advisers. It just comes back to building and maintaining a really strong relationship with our clients. I would also love to see some media support for the healthcare industries as they’ve been at the frontline throughout the pandemic.  Some of it has been negative so it would be great to see them get some support.   

I can see how Wylie Bisset and Radar Healthcare are matched, for us both it’s about more than providing technology; it’s about supporting other businesses to be the best they can possibly be..   

Absolutely, I think this is a strategic partnership to be really excited about. We’re using Radar Healthcare ourselves and it’s so useful for some of Wylie & Bisset’s internal compliance requirements. The support we’ve received when onboarding has been fantastic, we’ve got a project plan with action points and deadlines on that, which has given us piece of mind. The projects team are really supportive and the resources that have been available to us have been great, we are delighted by the support we have received. We’re in a really good place for moving forward and I can’t wait to see what our partnership brings.