Press & media

Jun 08, 2010

NHS Shared Business Services (NHS SBS), a unique joint venture between the Department of Health and Steria, today announced five new clients, including delivering Finance & Accounting (F&A) services to Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (LTH).

LTH considered a number of finance solutions and selected NHS SBS because it offered the most technologically advanced service at the lowest cost, enabling significant annual savings. The Trust also wanted to incorporate an efficient e‑Procurement platform, which its previous system could not accommodate.
Paul Havey, Finance Director at the Trust, said, "The Trust is currently in the migration phase of the project which is being managed well with excellent partnership working from both teams. We will be focusing on driving out savings, enabled by the procurement functionality within Oracle. NHS SBS provides a wealth of management information through a range of up to the minute dashboards, which means we will have improved financial controls, better systems management and a more robust IT infrastructure."
John Neilson, Managing Director of NHS SBS, said, "We are delighted to welcome Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (LTH) to NHS SBS. We have seen a real surge in NHS organisations choosing to join NHS SBS. The value is not only about saving money - it is also about quality of service, improved business intelligence, speed, accuracy and a team of people dedicated to supporting our clients."

"We have also seen a substantial rise in levels of client satisfaction over the last three years. Our most, recent survey shows that 90% of NHS SBS clients ‘would recommend NHS SBS,' NHS SBS has also achieved ‘World Class' ranking for the second year running in the Hackett global benchmark on effectiveness and efficiency. "We are hugely proud of this result and I believe it reflects the commitment of our people to make improvements and measure the effects of these improvements to benefit our clients" comments John.

"We have worked very hard to make sure all our clients have great service, value for money and better management information. Our overall ambition is to deliver even more savings for NHS Trusts and we are on target to put back around £250m over 10 years, which could pay for more than 12,000 extra nurses" John continued.

The other recent NHS SBS clients are:

Finance & Accounting
NHS Northamptonshire
NHS Kingston - Your Healthcare
Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Payroll
Care Quality Commission
Maidstone & Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust

About NHS Shared Business Services: www.sbs.nhs.uk
NHS Shared Business Services (NHS SBS) is a unique joint venture between the Department of Health and Steria, and leads the way in developing and providing Finance & Accounting, Payroll, e-Procurement and Family Health Services to all types of NHS organisations.
More than 21 million people in the UK have NHS healthcare delivered by NHS SBS clients.

NHS SBS provides a range of value added services to enable NHS Trusts to focus on strategic decision making and business improvement activities, whilst benefiting from operational efficiencies and savings of between 20% and 40%.

NHS SBS was cited in the 2009 HM Treasury Budget Report "improving efficiency in back office functions by building on the success of NHS Shared Business Services" and also featured in the OEP final report on efficiency savings.

With over 1,200 people employed and in excess of 4.5 million transactions processed per annum, NHS SBS works with over 30% of NHS organisations to deliver operational efficiencies, cost savings and improved service quality. It is on target to deliver savings of around £250m over ten years - which could pay for more than 12,000 extra nurses.