Toll Healthcare sharpens focus on quality assurance

Toll Healthcare is strengthening its quality and sustainability credentials as it expands across Australia’s healthcare logistics network.

When it comes to healthcare logistics, few things are more important than temperature control and compliance. With cold chain requirements being central to the safe and timely distribution of pharmaceuticals and medical devices, Toll Healthcare is investing in both its people and its infrastructure to stay ahead of industry needs.

Alison Tennent, recently appointed as Senior Manager, National Quality Assurance for Toll Healthcare, has entered into the role during a time of rapid change and opportunity. A pharmaceutical quality expert by trade, Alison brings experience in quality systems, GMP compliance, and consulting to her new post – and she’s tasked with ensuring Toll’s operations remain watertight as the business scales.

“My background is mostly in pharmaceuticals manufacturing and warehousing,” she explains. “I’ve worked with major pharma companies as well as consulting firms, always in quality assurance and compliance roles. At Toll Healthcare, I have national responsibility for the quality function, including the maintenance of our GMP licences, ISO certifications, poisons licences, and the quality systems that support all of them.”

With a team of four supporting facilities across the country, Alison’s remit extends to everything from handling customer complaints to ensuring the accuracy and rigour of preventative maintenance and training programs.

“Quality assurance isn’t just about ticking boxes,” she says. “It’s about embedding the right processes into our operations to ensure we meet our compliance obligations –  and more importantly, that we meet the expectations of our customers. These aren’t just internal systems. They are core business processes.”

Meeting demand through temperature control

Toll operates behind the scenes in the healthcare supply chain, supporting pharmaceutical and biotech clients including CSL Seqirus and CSL Behring.

“We manage all their finished products and in-licensed items, and we also store raw materials in support of CSL’s manufacturing facility next door to our Melbourne Airport site,” Alison notes.

That proximity enables rapid turnaround for time-sensitive orders – a hallmark of Toll’s healthcare logistics model. The company’s core capabilities include inbound and outbound logistics, inventory control, and specialist storage for pharmaceutical and medical device products requiring strict temperature regulations.

At its Tullamarine site, the facility is divided into three separate temperature zones: ambient, chilled, and frozen. The company is also in the process of expanding its use of ultra-low temperature freezers – targeting minus 70°C – to accommodate specialised product lines.

“These zones are validated, temperature-mapped, and closely monitored in real time,” says Alison. “We’re using more modern temperature monitoring systems to gain better visibility over the performance of our fridges, freezers and cool rooms. That allows us to optimise our preventative maintenance schedules and respond quickly if there are any alarms or out-of-spec risks.”

Temperature is just one part of the equation. Sustainability, particularly in packaging, is becoming a growing priority – both for Toll and its clients.

“We’re currently running a project focused on sustainable alternatives to polystyrene packaging, which are commonly used but not very environmentally friendly,” Alison says. “The goal is to identify solutions that still meet temperature control requirements but are far more sustainable. We’ll assess their feasibility and then conduct performance testing across our distribution network.”

The project is part of broader work within the group to address sustainability in its operations.

Expansion in Perth

Following facility upgrades in Brisbane and Melbourne in recent years, Toll is now building a larger, more modern healthcare warehouse in Hazelmere, Western Australia.

“The new Perth facility is part of a broader strategy to expand our national footprint and support growing demand,” says Alison. “It will still be TGA-licensed and GMP-compliant, but it gives us additional space and the ability to support more specialised healthcare products.”

These upgrades also coincide with system improvements designed to streamline data access and reporting, including digitised equipment tracking and quality system analytics.

“We want to be able to trend and analyse our performance data more easily so that we can continue to improve,” she explains. “Whether it’s the integrity of temperature control or the robustness of our quality systems, having real-time access helps us respond to issues faster and stay proactive.”

Building capability through training

Alison is also overseeing efforts to bolster workforce capability, with new training programs, professional development, and competency-based assessments rolled out across the business.

“All of our operational and quality teams have detailed training matrices in place, and we support certification where relevant,” she says. “For example, one of my team members is completing lead auditor training this week. We also have access to Toll’s internal learning platform, and we attend conferences to stay up to date with industry developments.”

This training culture ensures Toll’s compliance practices evolve with industry standards – while also giving staff a clear pathway for professional growth.

In healthcare logistics, compliance is critical to ensuring products reach patients safely and on time.

“Some of the products we store and distribute are going directly to hospitals or patients waiting for treatment,” Alison explains. “If something goes wrong with the logistics, it could delay that patient receiving a life-saving medicine. So, we take our quality systems extremely seriously.”

With that responsibility comes the need to future-proof the business. As Toll’s healthcare operations continue to grow, Alison is focused on ensuring quality systems scale in lockstep.

“We’ve got lots of growth opportunities, and part of my job is to make sure our processes can support that expansion,” she says. “They need to remain compliant, but also flexible enough to evolve with our clients’ needs.”

While Toll Healthcare’s team is based primarily in Australia, its success is beginning to shape the company’s global operations.

“Our Australian business is the more mature part of the healthcare network,” says Alison. “It’s got an established client base, rigorous quality systems, and a national infrastructure footprint. A lot of what we’re developing and refining here – including learnings from our team – will inform how we grow our global healthcare operations, particularly across Asia.”

Ultimately, Toll Healthcare’s Australian division is helping shape the group’s broader healthcare capabilities, particularly as expansion continues in other regions.