Modern Slavery Statement

In accordance with the Modern Slavery Act 2015, Marie Curie makes the following statement for the financial year 2023-24.

What we do

Marie Curie offers expert care, guidance and support for people living with a terminal illness, and their families. We believe everyone living with a terminal illness should be able to get the most from the time they have left.

We provide hands-on care and emotional support for people in their own homes and in our nine hospices across the UK. We also provide information and support through our free Information and Support Line and our website, offer face to face support through our Helper Service and raise funds through our fundraising and retail activity.

We have around 4,000 staff and over 6000 volunteers, all based in the UK. Our staff are mostly directly employed, based in the UK and not in categories vulnerable to modern slavery. Our focus is to put in place polices to safeguard our patients, staff and volunteers, and policies and procedures for due diligence for our suppliers.

Marie Curie is committed to ensuring that modern slavery and human trafficking is not taking place in any part of its business or in any of its supply chains. We will never knowingly work with any organisation connected with modern slavery, human trafficking, or child labour.

Modern Slavery Statement 2023-24

All members of staff have a personal responsibility for the successful prevention of modern slavery and human trafficking. This is underpinned by our:

• Safeguarding Policy - which provides guidance on how to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and adults who come into contact with our charity.
• Whistleblowing & Freedom to Speak Up Policy - which encourages staff to raise concerns of any kind, including those related to modern slavery.

We are committed to ensuring we have appropriate policies and procedures in place to assess and minimize the risk of modern slavery within our supplier relationships including their supply chains, particularly:

• Contracting practices, including obligations to adhere to the Modern Slavery Act and ethical sourcing.
• Procurement Policy – which addresses modern slavery and human trafficking and ethical sourcing.
• Procurement Procedure – guidance for those who procure goods and services for the charity.
• Core Principles – our Core Principles are included in our Supplier Questionnaires completed and signed up to by suppliers/bidders taking part in tendering.
• Ethics Policy – which addresses our care, fundraising, investments, the environment, and our purchasing.
• Marie Curie General Terms & Conditions – contain an obligation to comply with Modern Slavery Act.

We believe that the risk of modern slavery or human trafficking taking place our supply chain is low. It is based in the UK, and we take a risk-based approach to procurement, with increased scrutiny for higher risk areas, such as the purchase of clothing, promotional items and other goods which may be manufactured or supplied from outside the UK or the EEA.

Our procurement process aims to ensure we receive value for money and that our suppliers meet our requirements for ethical procurement. Suppliers are asked to demonstrate they embrace diversity, understand risk in their own supply chains and remunerate staff fairly.

Each year we continued to review our internal practices and supplier network to identify where there may be a potential risk of modern slavery, assess relevant suppliers and audit compliance. We have also carried out due diligence, including supplier site visits where applicable, mystery shopping on our third-party fundraising organisations to assess their working practices, particularly their employee remuneration policies and conditions of employment. This work will continue over the next financial year, and we will continue to develop our policies and procedures to identify and prevent risks of modern slavery internally and identify and mitigate risks in relation to our supply chain.

With the deployment of Oracle ERP, Procurement is responsible for managing the Supplier Database (in Oracle). The Oracle Supplier Administration role sits within the remit of Procurement and has responsibility to check details are complete before approval or rejection of New Supplier Requests. There is segregation of Duties with a second member of the team (Senior Buyers or Head of Procurement check and validate details entered before approval to activate is completed.

This process will together with First Reports (Credit Recommendation tool) provide greater visibility of the supply chain, and the ability to undertake appropriate Due Diligence checks.

This statement is made pursuant to s54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 for the financial year ended 31 March 2024 and covers the activities of Marie Curie and its active wholly owned trading subsidiary, Marie Curie Trading Limited, which actively purchases goods for re-sale in our shops and online.