How BH Live Transformed Operational Compliance Across 17 Leisure Facilities
One of the UK’s leading charitable leisure trusts replaced fragmented systems with OpsPal’s central platform, achieving real-time operational visibility and eliminating compliance risks across its entire portfolio.
Organisation:
BH Live (Charitable Leisure Trust)
Sector:
Leisure & Sport
Sites Using OpsPal:
17 facilities
Service Area:
Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole, Southampton
Key Decision-Maker:
Roy Clarke, Director of Technical Operations
Key Outcomes Achieved:
Real-Time Reporting
Unprecedented visibility into operations across all sites
Issue Tracking
Easy recording and monitoring of issues with tracked follow-up actions
Document Control
Version control and read receipts ensure critical information is communicated
About BH Live (Charitable Leisure Trust)
BH Live is a charitable leisure trust. Their portfolio includes swimming pools, leisure centres, gyms, sports halls, and outdoor facilities that serve hundreds of thousands of visitors each year across the region.
The Challenge: Fragmented Systems Create Operational Risk
Before implementing OpsPal, BH Live faced several critical operational challenges that were impacting efficiency, compliance, and their ability to maintain consistent standards across their 17 facilities.
Reporting Difficulties
Without centralised visibility, senior management couldn’t see what was happening across the portfolio. Operational checks were recorded in different ways at different sites. Issues logged at one facility weren’t visible elsewhere, even when they could inform best practice or prevent similar problems from occurring.
This fragmented approach meant that identifying patterns, tracking trends, and making data-driven decisions about operations was extremely challenging.
Document Version Control Chaos
Tracking document versions and confirming that staff had read and understood critical information was a major challenge.
With multiple versions of procedures, risk assessments, and policies circulating across different sites, there was a genuine risk that staff were working to outdated information. When procedures changed, ensuring all relevant staff were aware of updates required extensive manual effort and follow-up.
Inconsistent Systems Across Sites
BH Live was operating with outdated and unsuitable bespoke systems that varied from site to site. What worked at one facility didn’t necessarily work at another. Staff moving Between sites, they encountered different processes and systems, creating confusion and inefficiency.
This inconsistency made it difficult to maintain standards, share best practices, and provide coherent training to new staff.
The Impact on Operations
These challenges combined to create several serious operational impacts:
- Compliance Risk: Without clear audit trails and proof of staff understanding, the trust faced potential compliance issues
- Inefficiency: Staff and managers spent excessive time on administrative tasks that should have been straightforward
- Lack of Visibility: Senior leadership lacked real-time insight into operational status across the portfolio
- Inconsistent Standards: Different sites operating differently made it harder to maintain the trust’s high standards everywhere
- Communication Challenges: Ensuring critical information reached the right people at the right time was unreliable
Roy Clarke, Director of Technical Operations, knew that these issues needed addressing urgently—not just for efficiency, but for risk management and the trust’s ability to demonstrate operational excellence.
The solution: OpsPal’s centralised compliance platform.
Why BH Live Chose OpsPal
BH Live evaluated several operational management solutions, looking for a platform that could:
- Provide real-time visibility across all 17 facilities
- Centralise document control with robust version management.
- Prove that staff had accessed and understood critical information
- Create consistent processes while accommodating site-specific requirements.
- Replace multiple fragmented systems with one cohesive solution
- Be operationally focused rather than generic facilities management
OpsPal stood out because it had been built specifically for leisure operations by people who understood the sector. Unlike generic facilities management systems, OpsPal’s structure—risk assessments, procedures, tasks, training, and problem management—aligned perfectly with how leisure facilities actually operate.
The platform’s ability to provide live dashboards with organisation, site, team, and individual views meant that everyone from frontline staff to senior directors could see exactly what they needed to see, when they needed to see it.
Critically, OpsPal passed BH Live’s IT security review smoothly. The platform’s AWS hosting, audit logging, and security features met the trust’s requirements without the lengthy delays that can derail software implementations.
Implementation Journey
OpsPal was implemented across BH Live’s 17 facilities with a structured rollout approach:
Phase 1: Foundation
- Central setup of organisational structure reflecting BH Live’s portfolio
- Migration of critical documents, procedures, and risk assessments
- Configuration of user access and permissions
- Training for management and administrative staff
Phase 2: Site Rollout
- Progressive rollout across facilities
- Site-specific procedures and tasks configured
- Frontline staff training delivered (6 minute training guide for all users, built in)
- Champion users identified at each facility
Phase 3: Optimisation
- Review of usage and adoption
- Refinement of processes based on feedback
- Expansion of features being used
- Integration into daily operations
The implementation team worked closely with Roy Clarke and his technical operations team to ensure that OpsPal wasn’t just installed but properly embedded into BH Live’s operational culture.
The Results: A Game-Changer for BH Live
Since BH Live implemented the OpsPal Operational Compliance Platform, the challenges they previously faced have vanished. The transformation has been significant across multiple areas of their operations.
Real-Time Operational Visibility
The real-time operational reporting capabilities of OpsPal have given BH Live unprecedented visibility on their sites.
What This Means in Practice:
- Senior management can see operational status across all 12 facilities instantly
- No more waiting for monthly reports to understand what’s happening
- Issues are visible as they occur, not days or weeks later
- Patterns and trends can be spotted quickly, enabling proactive management
- Board reporting is simpler and more accurate
Roy Clarke and his technical operations team now have live dashboards that show them exactly what’s happening across the portfolio. Compliance status, outstanding tasks, active issues, and staff training—all visible in real-time.
Streamlined Issue Tracking and Follow-Up
BH Live can now easily record and monitor issues, track follow-up actions, and generate accurate reports.
Operational Impact:
- Every issue gets logged and tracked through to a resolution.
- Nothing is forgotten or lost in email chains
- Clear ownership and accountability for every problem
- Follow-up actions are recorded and monitored
- Patterns in issues can be identified and addressed systematically
The Problem Manager feature has transformed how BH Live handles operational issues. Staff can log problems on any device, photographs can be attached for clarity, and progress through resolution is tracked with full transparency.
Management meetings now focus on addressing problems systematically rather than trying to remember what’s been reported and what needs follow-up.
Document Control and Version Management
OpsPal has provided BH Live with a centralised and consistent system for managing all their policy, procedural, and health and safety information.
Key Benefits:
- Single source of truth for all operational documents
- Clear version control—always know which is the current version
- Robust search functionality to find documents quickly
- Read receipts prove staff have accessed critical information
- Document reviews tracked and reminded automatically
The platform ensures that staff can quickly access the most up-to-date and authorised documents, eliminating the confusion and risk associated with outdated versions. When a procedure is updated, relevant staff are notified automatically and their read status is tracked.
For governance and compliance purposes, BH Live can now demonstrate that staff have been informed of changes and have accessed the current information—a critical requirement for health and safety management.
Consistency Across All Sites
The consistency that OpsPal has brought to BH Live’s document formats, systems, and processes across all sites has been invaluable.
Standardisation Benefits:
- Every site operates to the same procedures and standards
- Staff moving between facilities encounter familiar systems
- Best practices can be shared and implemented consistently
- Training is coherent and transferable across sites
- Technical operations team manages one system, not twelve different approaches
Enhanced Communication and Assurance
The version control and read receipt features provide BH Live with the assurance they need that critical information is being effectively communicated and understood.
Compliance Confidence:
- Proof that staff have accessed risk assessments and procedures
- Evidence that updates have been communicated and acknowledged
- Clear audit trail for governance and inspection purposes
- Management confidence that critical information has reached the right people
- Reduced compliance risk across the organisation
This assurance is particularly valuable when dealing with health and safety incidents, inspections, or governance reviews. BH Live can demonstrate their systems and show that staff were properly informed.
Testimonial
Since implementing the OpsPal Operational Compliance Platform, these difficulties have become a thing of the past. OpsPal has provided us with a centralised and consistent system for managing all our policy, procedural, and health and safety information.
The consistency that OpsPal has brought to our document formats, systems, and processes across all our sites has been invaluable. It has replaced our outdated and unsuitable bespoke systems with a solution that is truly operationally focused and accessible to all relevant users.
OpsPal has not only simplified our operational compliance but has also significantly improved our efficiency and reduced our risk. It’s been a game-changer for our organisation.
OpsPal Features Used by BH Live
BH Live uses these OpsPal features across their 12 facilities:
- Risk Assessments – Centralised risk assessment management with version control and staff sign-off tracking
- Procedures – All operational procedures stored centrally with automatic notifications when updated
- Tasks – Scheduled operational checks and maintenance tasks tracked across all sites
- Training Matrix – Staff training records and compliance tracked digitally with automatic expiry reminders
- Problem Manager – Issue logging and tracking through to resolution with full audit trail
- Live Dashboards – Real-time visibility of operations at organisation, site, team, and individual levels
- Document Version Control – Single source of truth with read receipts and update tracking
- Audit Logging – Complete audit trail of all activities and changes across the platform
What's Next for BH Live
BH Live continues to expand their use of OpsPal as the platform evolves. The trust is exploring additional features and ways to further leverage the operational intelligence that OpsPal provides.
The technical operations team regularly reviews usage data to identify opportunities for improvement and to ensure they’re getting maximum value from the platform across all 17 facilities.
With OpsPal now embedded in their operations, BH Live has the foundation to continue raising standards, improving efficiency, and demonstrating operational excellence across their leisure facilities.
Book a demo with OpsPal here to see how we could help you