The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) is getting in on the RPA act. One of its leading hospital trusts has just launched a Centre of Excellence to promote use of RPA technology.
Robot surgeons it is not. In fact the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital Foundation NHS Trust has more prosaic but no less important goals in its sights. They’re looking to automate high volume, repetitive back office tasks in HR, finance, procurement and informatics. And they’re already reporting “impressive results” in time saved through productivity gains.
This is music to our ears. When a nationally scrutinised and funded organization chooses RPA, you know it’s gone mainstream. It’s also great to hear that they’ve spotted the opportunity to use RPA to streamline HR processes. With over 6,000 employees and legions of temporary and contract staff, they’ve got their work cut out with payroll and workforce admin.
Chelsea and Westminster is one of the UK’s most progressive hospital trusts. It’s one of four NHS Global Digital Exemplars, tasked with sharing digital knowledge with other UK trusts. So you can bet that it won’t be long before the rest of the NHS is embracing RPA.
As the UK’s biggest employer, with more than 1.5 million staff and many more contracted, there’s likely to be a huge opportunity for the NHS to deliver cost efficiencies and improved staff experiences using RPA in its payroll and HR.
Such a large and complex organization inevitably has a plethora of new and legacy systems and is under intense public scrutiny to use funding wisely. As NHS bosses grasp the potential of RPA, it must seem like the answer to their prayers – an efficient, quickly deployed technology that connects systems rather than making them obsolete and that brings together data and carries out vital processing securely and effectively.
Read Computer Weekly’s article about the Chelsea and Westminster RPA announcement.