Downloading PDF

Financial process automation saving up to 50 hours per month

Financial process automation saving up to 50 hours per month

Home » Case studies » Financial process automation saving up to 50 hours per month

Our Corporate Finance and our Digital Innovation Unit have saved up to 50 hours per month in financial reporting and invoicing after introducing robotic process automation to some transactional finance processes.

Background

At NHS Midlands and Lancashire (NHS ML), we carry out a high volume of transactional finance processes every day for clients. Following a successful proof of concept using a third party bot, we invested in RPA (Robotic Process Automation) aiming to increase productivity and efficiency.

A review of tasks revealed the priority areas where automation could add the most value. The most labour-intensive activities were accessing ISFE, running and saving reports, manipulating and emailing them out and chasing care providers for responses to emails so that payments could be made.

Action

The Digital Innovation Unit worked with our finance experts to understand what, when and how needed to be done in detail. There are three aspects to the automation of ISFE reports, from simple to more complex:

  • Routine running of daily, weekly and monthly reports. The bot runs and saves them overnight so they are ready to be worked on in the morning
  • Manipulating the reports and emailing them out to customers automatically
  • Automated chaser emails to providers.

Impact

Staff no longer have to spend time running standard reports which are now scheduled to run and be saved ready to use automatically.  Staff previously creating, editing and emailing reports to clients every week now focus on adding more value elsewhere in the service.

Our Corporate Finance team has saved around nine hours per month from downloading ledger reports each day as part of the month-end process. The reports are available by 8am each morning during month-end, ready for the team to use.

We have also saved around 30-40 hours per month chasing responses to emails. The bot performs this action twice before it bounces back for human intervention.

We have up-skilled our staff and learnt important lessons on coding, bot providers and requirements for automation. This enhanced knowledge is allowing us to explore even more ways to improve productivity and deliver a better value service to the NHS.

Feedback

“This review of the process allowed us to use technology available to quickly streamline and improve the process.  Driving efficiency allows us to invest time in adding value.”

Lyn Tallentire, Deputy Finance Director, NHS ML

For more information

For more information and to learn how we can help your organisation, please contact us.

View all

News and views

Blog News

A walk through of the Court of Protection Deprivation of Liberty process

Fergus Campbell, Clinical Lead, NHS ML In the final post of our blog mini-series on Court of Protection…

News

Join the tenth anniversary edition of The School for Change Agents!

Would you like to develop skills to make a difference and create change in health and care?   The…

News

Shaping the future of NHS care at the 2024 NHS Providers Annual Conference

The four NHS Commissioning Support Units (CSUs) will be taking part in this year’s NHS Providers Annual Conference…

View all

How we can help health systems

Clinical redesign and provider collaboration

Redesigning how health and care works across England - placing people at the centre of their own health and care and utilising…

Learn more about Clinical redesign and provider collaboration
Clinical redesign and provider collaboration

Communications and engagement

Supporting ICSs with approaches to design and deliver effective communication, engagement and behavioural insights as a key enabler for system change and…

Learn more about Communications and engagement
Communications and engagement

Developing health systems

Acting as an independent and trusted partner within the system to facilitate working across stakeholders and integrate elements of the provider system…

Learn more about Developing health systems
Developing health systems

Digitally enabled transformation and IT

Digitising care and partnering with systems for the transformation of digitally enabled service delivery (and other supporting processes) across vision, planning and…

Learn more about Digitally enabled transformation and IT
Digitally enabled transformation and IT

Improving productivity and efficiency

We have a range of impactful solutions both across operational services and transformational programmes to support NHS systems to tackle some of…

Learn more about Improving productivity and efficiency
Improving productivity and efficiency

People solutions

Supporting systems to build a sustainable and integrated workforce, transforming systems, organisations and the workforce experience to improve resilience.

Learn more about People solutions
People solutions

Personalised healthcare commissioning services

Providing end-to-end funded care services, including patients as active partners in identifying their healthcare needs and then commissioning care to meet these.…

Learn more about Personalised healthcare commissioning services
Personalised healthcare commissioning services

PHM analytics and decision support

Applying intelligence-led understanding of the health of the population to support the redesign of care and improve patient and financial outcomes across…

Learn more about PHM analytics and decision support
PHM analytics and decision support

Place and primary care transformation

Supporting providers to work together at a place and neighbourhood level to manage common resources, integrate community teams, improve health and reduce…

Learn more about Place and primary care transformation
Place and primary care transformation
MLCSU