The Independent Healthcare Providers Network (IHPN) won bronze in the “UK Association of the Year” category at this year’s Association Excellence Awards which took place in Central London in October.

The Association Excellence Awards salute, celebrate and encourage the vital work that associations, trade bodies, professional organisations and chartered institutes do for and on behalf of their members to ensure their voices are heard and their causes are championed.

Seeing off competition from trade associations and membership groups across the entirety of the UK economy, IHPN were awarded bronze in the “UK Association of the Year” category in recognition of work undertaken to support members to play their part in the health service recovery post-covid.

IHPN also won silver in the “Best membership support during Covid-19” category, reflecting work to ensure the sector had full access to PPE and covid testing, and the role played by the network in brokering an agreement with the Government in early 2022 to make available “surge” capacity to the NHS in response to the omicron variant.

David Hare, Chief Executive of the Independent Healthcare Providers Network, said:

“I’m absolutely thrilled that IHPN has been recognised at the Association Excellence Awards. We were honoured to win alongside some incredible organisations representing so many different parts of British industry during a period which has demonstrated once and for all the value and importance of trade associations and the work they do with governments, regulators and the public.

“It’s been a huge privilege for IHPN to support our members over the last year to ensure they can meet the growing needs of both NHS and private patients, and this award is testament to the incredibly hard work of the IHPN team over the last 12 months.”

Comments from the Association Excellence Awards judges include:

“Successful engagement and policy initiatives evidenced”

 “Some great progress in the year in positioning the sector alongside and complementary with the NHS. Big advances with government support.”

 “Excellent evaluation figures from member survey and superb recommendation rate.”

 “Impressive impact for members during the difficult Covid period.”